Lighten up. It doesn’t bother me that much. I just sometimes enjoy pointing out what I see as absurdities.
I put together a fair number of Jeopardy!-style quizzes for various gatherings and conferences, and I find the answer-and-question format to be very helpful in calibrating the difficulty of the questions. I’ve put together quizzes both ways, in standard trivia-quiz/College Bowl style and as Jeopardy! style, and find the latter to be much easier.
Listen carefully to what Alex says. He stopped referring to what the contestants are supposed to say as “questions” quite some time ago (unless in the context of reminding a contestant to phrase their response in the form of a question). Alex always refers to “responses” not “questions.”
For example, when he is reading off the list of categories and he gets to the category “Who ‘R’ you?” he says “Remember, each correct response will contain the letter ‘R’.” He doesn’t say “Remember, each correct question will contain the letter ‘R’.” Similarly, at the end of the Final Jeopardy round he says “Let’s look at the contestants’ responses” (not “questions”).
I think that changed a few years back. It used to be that the contestants’ responses were always referred to as “questions” but now it seems as if he has been instructed to avoid using the word “question.”
The categories matter. It’s a shorthand to allow more questions in the limited time.
Well, one could argue that a line is a degenerate special case of a rectangle, but if it bothers you, just interpret what I said as meaning “in the set (0,12.5]”.
And Mr Downtown, how does the answer-question format make any difference to calibration?
I find it sounds more natural to drop in subtle clues when you think the question might be too difficult for the contestants.
I’m fairly certain that Charles Rocket was never invited onto the celebrity edition of the show.
A little from column A, a little from column B
(Added bonus: pay attention to how the contestant in control of the board chooses the category/amount)
The fact that Merv was married begs all kinds of questions to be asked!
What if the expected response is itself already in the form of a question? For instance, “This album was the last one that Keith Moon’s band released before his death.” Can the contestant just say, “Who Are You?” or would she have to say, “What is ‘Who Are You’?”
Both ways would be ruled correct, but the latter would be said more often because it’s a reflex.
Now that you mention it, you’re right. I haven’t heard “questions” referred to on screen in a long time.
THANK GOD.
I wouldn’t watch it just because of this stupid form. Why can’t they just answer questions and receive answers? There are endless questions you can ask if you get a question and still be correct. for 5,280 you can ask how much is 5280 multiplied by 1 or how much is 5281 - 1 or how much meters are in 5.281 kms.
Even if you keep this format. Just let them give the question without prefix, like : number of feet in mile and not : how many feet are in mile?
It also doesn’t sound like real answers and real questions, it’s more like terms and definitions , and phrasing questions doesn’t make sense there.
I always assumed they did it because it saves space. Those squares where the answer is given don’t have a lot of room.
Deleted. Dupe.
Also the fact that questions can have the same answer is problematic:
A. The answer is 5,280.
Q. Wast is 1,320 times 4?
Of course, Cliff Clavin (Cheers) had the canonical example of the smart-ass Jeopardy response:
Final Jeopardy answer is: “Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwarz, and Lucille LeSueur."
Cliff writes, “Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?”
I think you are just sore because it took you almost four years to ring in.
Since it is the number one game show of all time (according to TV Guide) I’m sure they will be questioning their format based on your feedback.
I also found the gimmick just too irritating after a while. As many have stated, it’s superfluous and it doesn’t work well.
Seems to work well enough to earn over $70 million a year in syndication fees.