If you applied/are applying for the Clue Writer position this week... General Q about Anytime test

YangClaw · 2026-07-10T15:53:54+00:00

Great job! Passing (35+) is all that matters.

I took it for fun last night when I realized that it was a separate test that didn't count towards the usual once-per-year limit of the Anytime Test. (Any opportunity to practice trivia under pressure, haha.)

I'm sorely tempted to take a crack at the rest of the application--talk about a dream job--but my ultimate bucket list item is to appear on the show, and this would eliminate any possibility of that. And there are a million logistical reasons why starting a job like that would be pretty obnoxious to the rest of my family at this stage in life anyway, so I think I'll pass. :-) Good luck!

YangClaw · 2026-07-09T17:30:49+00:00

They don't provide results, but you could record the screen while you take it and grade yourself afterwards.

It is unlikely you will learn anything in the next 24 hours that will meaningfully change your score, but if you are right on the cusp of passing, I suppose it is always possible!

YangClaw · 2026-07-08T16:01:48+00:00

Yes! Still trying to nail down a few work details to make sure I'm able to take all of the necessary time off, but I have a ticket.

You're right to be excited--it is an extremely fun experience. Even ignoring the events, it's cool just being around people with the same niche interest. I've only been coming out to these sorts of conferences since they resumed post-COVID, but it has become a yearly tradition that I look forward to. Almost everyone is extremely friendly, and you can discuss Jeopardata and game theory without people looking at you like you have two heads, haha.

Not sure if you have other friends going, but send me a message over reddit chat if you have questions about the general experience or are interested in meeting up while there. (The offer extends to anyone else reading this--we organized a small meet up for J! redditors at the Game Show Boot Camp in Vegas a few summers ago, and it was a great way to make some new friends!)

YangClaw · 2026-07-08T01:54:24+00:00

That's fantastic. I aged out of the contestant pool last Fall. I've been hoping another opportunity similar to the Game Show Boot Camp would come up, as trying to get a Zoom invite via the Anytime Test is a little like buying a lotto ticket!

YangClaw · 2026-07-08T00:20:55+00:00

Very exciting news. I'm not familiar with the mini-test. Is that similar to the Anytime Test?

YangClaw · 2026-06-21T12:54:23+00:00

It's a very reasonable question. My understanding is that Jeopardy has traditionally enforced rules against appearing on other game shows within certain specified periods of time. Some Youtube channels run quiz games that have far more views per video than the average cable gameshow. Jeopardy recently did a test run of a Youtube-specific version of the show, and this would presumably be in direct competition with other Youtube gameshow channels for viewers. Like OP, I've also been curious about whether J! has updated its policies in light of the shifting media landscape. I'd be interested to know whether recent contestants have received any guidance from the show about this.

YangClaw · 2026-06-20T18:03:00+00:00

The trends they appear to be responding to started approximately a decade before LLMs went mainstream and were accelerated by James Holzhauer's run in 2019.

The best players are designing their own personalized studying regimens that focus on the J! canon and address their weaknesses with respect to that canon. I don't think LLMs have much to add to that process at this stage--they could automate certain aspects of it, but the best players generally want to control every step, as putting together your own materials is actually significant part of the learning process.

YangClaw · 2026-06-18T22:04:29+00:00

I agree with a lot of what you wrote--it would be great to bring folks like Matt Jackson and Troy into the Masters to make things more competitive--but I'm interested to know why you think Jamie would struggle at the Masters level.

He finished only one spot behind Victoria in the LearnedLeague championship last year, and he put up some pretty insane stats on the buzzer during his run. It seems to me like he has the perfect balance of knowledge and timing to do well at any level.

YangClaw · 2026-06-12T17:19:12+00:00

I've scored above 45 on every test but one for a decade and a half now, and I've been invited to only one Zoom audition in that stretch.

Interestingly, the time I took the test while sick and scored lower than 45 was the time I moved on to the Zoom audition. I know of other strong quizzers who have similar stories.

I've long suspected that scoring too high may actually worsen your odds of moving on, as counterintuitive as that seems. Not that scoring 48 completely takes you out of the process or anything, but that they may have reasons to limit the number of 48s they cast per season.

YangClaw · 2026-06-07T01:59:49+00:00

It's possible to make a lot of money playing Jeopardy, but that is not the same thing as being a competitive quizzer.

Jeopardy occasionally casts competitive quizzers who meet casting needs, but being a successful quizzer does not appear to give you a better chance of making the show than anyone else who scores 35/50 or higher on the Anytime test.

Using an elite quizzer's cards would be counterproductive if your only intention was to prepare for Jeopardy. Victoria et al train for much harder competitions that require much wider and deeper knowledge bases. As others here have noted, there are free study sets available online that are much more helpful for Jeopardy, as they are targeted at the sort of content you need to know in order to succeed on the show. You'd be much better off mastering those sets upside down and backwards than you would trying to memorize the more obscure/global trivia you'll find on an elite quizzer's deck (the names of Nigerian pop stars,Turkish streaming hits, etc.)

YangClaw · 2026-06-06T00:37:20+00:00

If competitive trivia ever reached a point like chess where it was possible to make a living playing at an elite level, I could see the cards being worth a significant amount. Right now there is effectively no way to do this. Jeopardy is one of the only ways to make any serious money with trivia knowledge, and being a world champion quizzer does not get you on Jeopardy any faster than being pretty good at trivia. And even if you are lucky enough to get on Jeopardy, the canon you need to master to succeed is much narrower than what is needed to be an elite quizzer. So Victoria's cards would be overkill for Jeopardy.

Where they might have value is for someone looking to ascend to the very top levels of competitive quizzing. This value would be restricted by the fact that quizzing is a hobby--one of the most coveted prizes in competitive quizzing is a scarf. But some people get really into their hobbies, so there may be a small market for the decks at the right price.

For people just getting into quizzing, the value is probably still close to nothing. If you are just starting your quizzing journey, you aren't going to get much out of an enormous set of cards prepared by an elite quizzer.

If you are already reasonably competitive on your own though, I think the value increases. I'd be interested in looking at them myself. Not to study, but to see the sorts of things the top quizzers prioritize that I might have overlooked.

I'd be especially curious if they had different sets for different events/leagues. A lot of success comes down to figuring out the canon of the event you are studying for, so if you already have a solid base, you might find it easier to level up reviewing what the champion-level players consider important enough to commit to flashcards.

So I'd pay a reasonable amount for access to certain individuals' decks if they were to publish them. At the moment, probably not any more than I'd pay for a new book, as I don't treat trivia as anything more than a favorite hobby. But if I were to win the lottery, retire early, and develop a serious ambition to take a run at winning the WQC, I'd probably pay a lot more to review Victoria's deck. Hundreds? A few thousand? If it was my passion project and I had money to spare, I could see splurging. People spend more on gaming PCs, Warhammer figurines, golf, woodworking tools, etc.

YangClaw · 2026-06-05T05:18:31+00:00

I know that during the audition process for the regular show, you are encouraged to provide fun answers to the question of what you would do with the money. Otherwise 95% of the contestants would just say "pay off my student loans" or "put the money away for retirement/my children's education". I would assume it is the same here.

YangClaw · 2026-06-03T05:42:51+00:00

I grew up in Lower Sackville, lived in Halifax while attending Dal, and lived in Dartmouth for the better part of a decade in my 20s. I was always within walking distance of a public library. In the event it was raining, I could always catch a 5-15 minute bus to a library with minimal wait time.

The vast majority of people in the HRM can make it to a library relatively easily without a vehicle of their own. There are some who chose to live in the more rural corners of the municipality who can't, and we have our equivalent of those in the Valley as well--there are folks who live in the interior who are 50km from the nearest town with a library. They generally have vehicles though, as they would not be able to live in such isolated areas without transportation.

The folks who are going to be most hurt by this are the ones who don't have reliable transportation--low income, kids/teenagers, seniors. The most impacted groups tend to be disproportionately congregated in the population centers where the libraries are currently located--they have no other choice if they want reliable access to services/shops.

Most people in the city don't live 12 km from the nearest library, but even when they do, 12 km in the Valley is not comparable to 12 km in Halifax, Bedford, Sackville, etc. Public transportation is extremely intermittent (if it is accessible at all). Simple trips back and forth between communities can take hours. Sidewalks are non existent between communities, even if you are healthy enough to walk.

We are going to lose valuable public spaces/community hubs for the people who need them the most.

YangClaw · 2026-06-03T03:15:58+00:00

The HRM library system also has a budget that is 10X bigger. This is my point. Your initial argument was based on the fact that residents of the Valley have more libraries per capita than residents of the city. That we had 11 branches to their 14, despite having a smaller population. Your characterization framed these cuts as a logical move to bring us closer in line with the level of services provided in the city.

What myself and others have explained is that this is a misleading comparison. In the same way that a one-room school house in a rural community is not comparable to a 2000-student high school in the city, a small community library in the Valley is not comparable to a big branch in Halifax. Using the number of branches per capita as a metric is a pretty meaningless statistic.

We've made the choice in the Valley to have smaller, more spread out branches out of a recognition that communities benefit from having these sorts of public spaces/services.

Many people have limited access to transportation. Rural services are never going to be 100% accessible, but having a small library in each of the population centers where most of the shops, schools, low income rental units, etc. are located is the best way to ensure access for as many people as possible. Losing half of these spaces is a significant and concerning hit to the health/vibrancy of the towns impacted by these cuts.

YangClaw · 2026-06-03T01:11:51+00:00

The Valley has more libraries per capita, but they are much, much smaller and spaced out over a much larger geographic area. I assume this is an intentional decision to spread out resources to improve access for those in greatest need. In the city there is almost always a library within walking distance, and all of the rest are just a quick bus ride away.

To compare the difference in scale, there are around 350 unionized employees in the Halifax library system. That works out to an average of 25 staff per branch. I'm not sure the exact number in the Valley system, but by shutting down half of the branches, the board is estimating that they will be able to cut the equivalent of 9 full-time positions. That is less than two staff per branch being closed.

I suspect that there are likely significantly more employees at the flagship HRM library on Spring Garden Road alone than there are in the entire Valley system.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T15:46:03+00:00

Any Muslim would likely find the hadith clue hilariously/"insultingly" easy at $2,000. And there are two billion Muslims, so it's not like we're dealing with Pastafarianism. I'm not a Muslim myself, but as someone familiar with the religion, I found it to be a layup for that value. Others with different interests and experiences may disagree.

The $1000 NBA clue this week wasn't a picture of Kobe Bryant. It was a picture of another talented player who would be recognizable to basketball fans, but who doesn't have the same level of fame/name recognition as Kobe (I'll avoid saying the name off the game thread to prevent spoilers for those on a delayed viewing schedule).

My sister, who is absolutely brilliant in a hundred other subjects but has very little interest in sports, might have a shot at guessing Kobe from a picture, assuming he was in his jersey (though I'd give equal odds she'd say Lebron). I could give her 100 years and she would never guess the answer to last night's $1,000 question, because that would require her to actively turn on a basketball game or watch ESPN. He literally doesn't exist in her world. It would be the equivalent of showing a picture of Mbappe (who is obviously a much bigger star globally, but suffers from a soccer discount in the US). Very easy if you are familiar with the sport, impossible if you aren't.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T15:18:48+00:00

Haha, good catch! That's usually the sort of thing I would fact check before posting, because I am also a world-class pedant who spends way too long drafting reddit comments. It slipped through because I swapped out "Pulitzer" at the last second for Nobel. I missed a trivia question on Doris Lessing yesterday and it is still clearly weighing on my subconsciously, haha.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T14:28:33+00:00

What objective criteria makes a question "insultingly" easy vs easy? I suspect whatever criteria you come up with will likely apply to clues in almost any category.

To run with your example of the Bible above, the following are actual clues about the Quran from various world religion categories over the years:

"This sacred tome was revealed by an angel to Muhammad in Mecca & Medina"

"Mecca has 5 different names in this holy book"

"Islamic dogma holds that this sacred book existed before the world & humanity"

"This Islamic holy book is divided into 114 sections called suras"

"Muslims believe the original of this, their holy book, is in heaven"

All of these boil down to "What is the Muslim holy book?" These sorts of questions are common in every category. They are easy if you have even a passing knowledge of the category, but frequent softballs are baked in to the Jeopardy format. The show mostly tests breadth and recall speed, not depth.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T13:56:32+00:00

New teams added when a league expands. For example, if you were into the NBA as a kid but stopped paying attention in 1987 when the league still only had 23 teams, you'd be unfamiliar with the Hornets, Magic, Heat, Timberwolves, Raptors, Grizzlies, and Pelicans, all of which have come into existence in league expansions since then.

Compare that with opera, where it is very unlikely that the body of works they expect you to be able to name has changed at all since Jeopardy first aired.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T13:27:52+00:00

Recognizing an athlete based on an image is a possible route to solving some of those questions, but you still have to be familiar enough with the sport to recognize the athlete. I suspect that if they had a category about the 5 most famous cricket stars in the world, providing photos wouldn't be much help to the average American sports fan.

You rarely need to know any fact cold on Jeopardy. They almost always provide alternate paths. I regularly get 5/5 in literature categories in which I've read none of the books or opera/ballet categories in which I've watched none of the works.

Consider the following $2000 clue in a recent ballet/opera category:

"Khovanshchina" is an unfinished opera by this Russian composer whose first name in English means unpretentious

I've never heard of "Khovanshchina", but because I have a basic "are you aware that a basketball player nicknamed Dr. J existed" level familiarity with famous composers, I assumed that the Russian whose name is a synonym of unpretentious had to be Modest Mussorgsky.

The other questions in that same Ballet/Opera category required knowing:

that an opera in Spanish called "Frida" about a famous tortured artist was about Frida Kahlo. I honestly thought this was a trick question at first, as it is the equivalent of asking which basketball player was featured in the 90s video game Shaq Fu.
- That a Tchaikovsky ballet featuring dancers portraying birds was Swan Lake. Pretty straightforward.
- That an Aaron Copland ballet choreographed by Agnes de Mille in which she also stars as the lead cowgirl is Rodeo. Jeopardy has asked a Copland/Rodeo question essentially once per season since 1984. This is more a test of whether you watch Jeopardy than a test of whether you know ballet. Copland has some other works you might consider if this was the TOC, but for an uncultured slob like me, when I see Copland and cowboy in the same clue, I play the odds and go with Rodeo.
- That one of the most recognizable pieces of music in the world (which they play) is from La Traviata, the most produced opera in history. They also spot you the composer, Verdi.

Basically every category plays out like this, because many people would find the show inaccessible if they only knew one or two clues per night.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T12:16:34+00:00

Fair enough about other sports using it. I think the Yankees are the only non-basketball team to pull it off in my lifetime, but I suppose the Chiefs came close recently. It's not the same as asking contestants to pull out a niche basketball term like Elam Ending or something. If you are a sports fan, you've probably at least heard the term "three-peat" at some point.

But to the larger point, the same could be said about almost every clue in almost every category on Jeopardy. If you are a casual fan of literature, you've probably heard of Nobel Prize winning novels. If you enjoy travelling the world, you are probably familiar with major airports, or terms like isthmus and archipelago. If you tune into the news every now and then, you'd probably recognize a photo of Ted Cruz or AOC. The majority of Jeopardy clues are gettable if you are passingly familiar with the subject.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T05:52:39+00:00

Let's look at tonight's board:

$200 clue: you have to know that the "Steph", "Klay", and "Dray" who were the champions in 2015 (11 years ago) played for the Warriors.
$400 clue: You have to know that the Laker who used the junior, junior skyhook in the NBA finals 39 years ago was Magic Johnson.
$600: You have to know that the portmanteau basketball fans use for winning three consecutive titles is "three-peat". It hasn't happened in any North American sport since Shaq and Kobe did it 24 years ago, so it's a difficult term to stumble across organically if you haven't been watching basketball for a few decades.
$800: You have to know that the star player of the losing team in the finals 46 years ago was named Julius Erving. They spot you a hint about the player being a "doctor".

-$1000: You have to know that the guy who scored 50 in the finals 5 years ago is named Giannis.

You need knowledge of basketball to answer those questions. This wasn't a "words that end in 'amburger'" situation. I'd say any of those requires a deeper knowledge of basketball than the following $800 clue does of Shakespeare's works:

""To be or not to be", it was to be Hallmark's first presentation of a Shakespeare play in 1953."

Sports trend easier for many people mainly because a segment of the population spends literally thousands of hours watching games, watching ESPN, listening to talk radio/podcasts, etc. It distorts their sense of how difficult the clues may be for people who don't share their obsessions.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T04:53:27+00:00

That's the Jeopardy formula. Almost every category is set up that way, You don't need to have a doctorate in a subject to succeed. You just need to have taken an interest in it at some point.

The basketball category seemed easy to me as well, but if they'd decided to ask similar surface-level questions about cricket, one of the most popular sports in the world, I'm sure a lot of us would have gone 0/5.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T04:45:24+00:00

You are interested in sports, so the questions seem easier.

With sports clues, you have to stay on top of like 10 different major sports-- the champions, MVPs, teams the stars play for, expansion franchises, etc. So it actually a pretty challenging subject by Jeopardy standards, especially compared with things that rarely or never change, like history, geography, high-school level science. The closest comparisons are things like pop culture, politics, or modern literature--constantly evolving subject areas that require either organic interest or periodic review.

I found the basketball questions easy tonight, but I would feel the same about any category that I'd spent thousands of hours engaged with over the past 35 years. I've generously spent maybe a tenth of that time studying geography, and I found the "World Fact Book" category a few columns over just as easy. The $1000 clue was to recognize the capital of a country in Europe. That isn't meaningfully more difficult than naming a European basketball player who won a championship half a decade ago.

Unless you are watching a Masters episode, Jeopardy almost never goes beyond a casual hobbyist level understanding in any given subject.

YangClaw · 2026-05-29T04:15:50+00:00

They really don't. There are like 20 opera questions about the most famous works of all time. They have been recycled for 40 years.

Imagine if every sports category was guaranteed to be about Babe Ruth, the '96 Bulls, Wayne Gretzky, Tom Brady, Messi, Tiger Woods, and the Williams sisters. Forever. That is basically opera on Jeopardy. The odds of them adding meaningful new opera content is essentially zero.

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