I started watching Jeopardy this year. I love it. It is the most fascinating game of all because it’s great to play along. I just try to say the answer before the players do. I don’t say it in the form of a question because inevitably I then end up trampling over the contestant and can’t hear what the actual answer was.
There are a couple of phenomena that are very interesting when it comes to playing Jeopary:
How do I know that?
Sometimes you know the answer to a question but have no idea how. The other day, there was a question about a Dutch artist, and I knew the answer was Vermeer. As far as I know, I have never heard of this person. My guess is I heard it on Jeopardy sometime in the past. Bizarrely knowing an answer happens quite often, and it’s a little unsettling.
I do know that!
This is when you know the answer to a question, but you are particularly impressed with yourself for knowing it. For me this often happens with history questions. I’m horrible at history, but I’ll know something about Napoleon or something.
I smart!
This is when you don’t know the answer to the question, but you figure it out from hints in the clue. I didn’t get this one, but tonight one of the questions was asking for a British town in a normal fashion, but then added the phrase, “Steak your claim!” The answer was of course, Salisbury. I think honing this skill is actually the secret of Jeopardy champions.
Major Brain Block
Major brain block is when you know the answer, you just can’t remember what the words are. Tonight I knew the answer to Final Jeopardy was James Dean, I could think of his face and the names Marilyn Monroe, and Sal Mineo, but not the name James Dean. When I heard the answer I recognized it, but it was almost like hearing his name for the first time and I knew somehow his name had left my brain.
Minor Brain Block
This is when you know the answer, you know the words, but something is just going wrong in your brain and you can’t say the words. Given two more seconds, you would be able to, but somehow access to that part of your brain is delayed.
Amazing Brain
This is when you’re on better than ever, you get every question and not even you can believe it’s happening. You’re amazed at how much information one can hold in their brain.
Proud to be wrong.
This most often shows up in Final Jeopardy. It’s when you get the wrong answer, but everyone on the show had the same answer as you did. It’s too bad you didn’t get it right, but you’re in good company.
Playing Jeopardy is a weird window into you’re brain. After they ask the question, the answer sort of appears in your brain like a cloud and it starts to form. You can know you know the answer before you know what the answer is. Sometimes the cloud takes a long time to form, sometimes it’s almost instantaneous. The process of thinking of the answers is weird.
You can sort of imagine what Alzheimer’s would be like, it would be like the cloud would never form into the answer, and you can sort of comprehend how scary that would be. You can also imagine what dyslexia would be like, in a way, if the cloud formed the wrong answer. I know I keep talking about this cloud, but play Jeopardy, you’ll know what I mean. It’s not like you see a cloud, it’s more like an emotion of uncertainty, or pending knowledge. It’s hard to describe.