Is it my imagination, but are the questions in the Teacher Tournament simpler than usual (and still not answered very well)?
That’s been true for many years, I believe. The Teacher Tournament questions are always easier than are the questions in the regular games.
Kind of depressing, really.
eta: it’s been remarked in the thread about James Holzhauer that contestants on Jeopardy have to be fairly prosperous, financially. The auditioning process often entails a trip to another city, with associated costs, and then the trip to L.A. for the taping can also be expensive–and any winnings don’t get paid for several months.
So that might limit the pool of teachers who can participate. A smaller pool of contestants might not contain many people who do really well on the standard 50-question Jeopardy test, possibly.
I thought it seemed a little easier than normal. It may have something to do with the fact that they spend their entire workdays with children.
To say nothing of the fact that you need to bring several changes of clothing along, in the event that you advance a lot.
Well, that expense isn’t too onerous, unless men feel they need to have five different bespoke suits to wear. (Trying to recall if I’ve ever seen anything like that on the show!)
But the money thing is probably a real barrier for a lot of public school teachers, at least. You’ve got to have something like twelve hundred dollars to spare (at a minimum), if you have to fly and find accommodations for both the audition and the show. Many teachers don’t have that much sitting around, or even that much credit (or the desire to have a bill that size, plus interest, to have to pay off over time.)
Sure, you get at least a thousand from the show, but if that takes six months to receive, you’re paying a lot of interest.
Minimum they get in the Teacher’s Tournament is $5000.
I find the questions sort of weak, but then wonder if I’m influenced by the fact that questions have been getting harder during the James Holzhauer period, and had been very hard during that rather dismal Tournament of Champions.
Just a thought about aging. I look at those teachers, and I’ve been getting answers that they are missing. It must be a generational thing. (sighs the elderly former teacher).
People always use this as an excuse to badmouth teachers in the current year but I don’t know why you’d expect a Spanish teacher for example to be an expert on every one of the categories that come up
Jeopardy! questions are so varied you might never see a category in your area of expertise
That’s good. But from the information offered by people who’ve appeared on Jeopardy, contestants do appear to have to wait for several months to get the money.
So that circumstance would still act to restrict the pool of players to those who have a large chunk of cash in their account, and/or a big chunk of credit. And again, a lot of teachers don’t have much of a financial cushion.
I’ve often wonders why people labor under the delusion that teachers are somehow smarter than most people. They are usually only smarter than a bunch of kids. And not always then.
While being able to retain a lot of trivia is indication of intelligence, I don’t think you can say that people who don’t have that knowledge are necessarily less intelligent. Trivia in general and Jeopardy-style trivia in particular is a specialized field.
It doesn’t bother me at all for the questions to get easier any time they narrow down the field of contestants.
It also can be more fun in playing along, where you’re actually getting the questions before someone else has a chance.
It’s generally agreed that the Tournament of Champions uses harder material than ordinary games, and that the Teachers’ Tournament uses easier material. I dispute, however that “questions have been getting harder during the James Holzhauer period”. It may seem to be harder, but I think that’s because James usually spits out the answer before mere mortals like us can start thinking about it.
As one of the people who’ve appeared on Jeopardy, and as the guy who brought up the issue of the expenses involved in appearing on the show in the Holzhauer thread, let me mention that Tournaments are different. For the Teachers Tournament, the show pays all of the teachers’ travel and lodging expenses, and even gives them a per diem for each day they’re in L.A. So the expense normally associated with traveling to California to appear on Jeopardy doesn’t apply in this case.
I got that information straight from one of the teachers who competed in the current tournament.
Actually I think BigT is correct to point out that being good at trivia quizzes is less an indication of general intelligence, and more an indication of being good at trivia quizzes. It’s a specialized skill set, and a lot of generally bright people won’t necessarily be successful at it. Get up there under the lights, in front of the cameras and the audience, and it’s not as easy at it may seem when watching from home.
I also wonder if several weeks of watching James Holzhauer barrel through every clue hasn’t spoiled us for more “normal” game play.
Teaching is a profession that requires some measure of intelligence. Lots of other professions do, too. The average teacher probably isn’t any smarter than the average lawyer, or the average accountant. But some professions don’t require much if any intelligence. The average teacher probably is smarter than the average construction worker, or average garbage collector. And since the general population includes both intelligent professions and unintelligent professions, the average teacher probably is smarter than the overall average person.
Thanks for that information—and I’m glad to hear it. You have to wonder if the decision to pay the way of teachers rose out of a practical observation that many public school teachers just aren’t prosperous to pay their own way (as regular Jeopardy contestants must do).
Of course that undercuts my theory that the pool of possible teacher-contestants is decreased because only relatively-prosperous teachers can participate. But, heck, theories are made to be tested by facts.
True, but I am guessing that the average construction worker or garbage collector aren’t applying to Jeopardy. I still think that the average applicant to regular Jeopardy is likely more skilled than the average applicant to the Teacher’s Tournament.
Do players in the Teacher’s Tournament end up with a similar % of correct answers to regular season games? If so, that might suggest that the teachers are less skilled than average, and the writers write easier questions for the Teacher’s Tournament to keep the pacing similar to the regular season.