What is...try again next year?
Last Saturday I got up early (7:30!) and marched myself downtown to the St. Regis Hotel for the Jeopardy! contestant search. In the days leading up to this, I had adopted a very carefree attitude about it. I've heard that the contestant search exams are a lot harder than the questions on the show, and that you need at least 70% to pass, so I wasn't really holding my breath.

I got there with 10 minutes to spare, and in the lobby were about 100 other anxious people. The gender split was pretty equal, which surprised me. We all filed into a ballroom, with tables and a big projection screen set up. We played a mock game, and then the test started. 50 questions. Written. With about 10 seconds to answer each one. By question 30, I was feeling pretty good--a lot of questions really played to my strengths, and I probably only had 2 or 3 blank ones. By the end of the test, I was really feeling kind of cocky about it--I was very sure of 40 of my answers, somewhat sure of another 5, and iffy about the last 5. I had heard informally that 35 is usually the cutoff, but that's not confirmed or official.

So they leave you in the room while they go grade everyone's paper. During this little interlude I talked to people around me and I knew a lot of things that they didn't.

But...in the end, I didn't make it. In my group of 100, only 6 people were asked to stay. Oh well. There is always next time. And I have a Jeopardy! pen, so I didn't go home empty-handed.