How do the contestants on Jeopardy know such obscure information?

Strict parents who never let their children have a taste of life.




First of all, you don%26#039;t have to know all the answers, only about a third.





Secondly, most of the answers these days have a clue in them, sometimes really obvious. Like %26#039;This 16th century queen of England had the same name as the queen today%26#039;. That%26#039;s an exaggeration, but not much. A lot of questions are like that. %26quot;Who is buried in Grant%26#039;s Tomb%26quot;. 8^)





People who are liberal arts majors learn a wide range of interlocking facts about history, art, music, etc. If you have some knowledge of the subject, you can usually guess right a lot of the time.





I watch Jeopardy and I sometimes get about half the questions right, sometimes about a third.




Watching at home, I get 75%+ of the questions correct. If I studied up on popular categories the way contestants do, I%26#039;d probably be able to get almost all of them correct.





The trick is really reading a lot. You can pick up a lot from books, even fiction.




Either the gameshow people cheat and give out the answers to contestants, the contestants are given hints or studysheets, or there really are smart people out there who study and know just about everything.




most study for months before hand. some contestants mention that they do.


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