Nightmare Categories

This is where all of the games are discussed.

Moderators: alietr, trainman, econgator, dhkendall

SkeeBallRaif
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 11:13 am

Nightmare Categories

Post by SkeeBallRaif »

Hello folks--was curious about this question so I wanted to toss it out to the group, especially those who have been on the show.

Almost everyone has their "nightmare" categories. That probably doesn't need any more elaboration, but to be clear, I mean an area where you know in your heart you are significantly weaker when compared to most J!-ers.

So, for those of you who have been on the show, or who are studying now in the hopes of someday being on the show, I'm curious about two things:

1) What were / are your nightmare categories; and,
2) How did you prepare for them in advance?

Thanks--very interested to hear, as I'm trying to develop an approach for my own nightmare categories in the event I ever make it on the show.
User avatar
MarkBarrett
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 16471
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:37 am
Location: San Francisco

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by MarkBarrett »

My nightmare categories are Business & Industry or Word Origins

To prepare for those 7 years ago I did nothing. Who merged with who? This company name comes from? The stock ticker symbol for? No thank you. Word Orgins? I could have driven myself crazy and wasted a ton of time even attempting any preparation for those.

Instead I mostly limited my preparation to studying the order of English royalty and world capitals. Those weren't nightmares, but they were not strengths. Since I already had a familiarity with much of the names associated with those it was easier to make myself stronger in those categories.

Anything non-presidential about U.S. office holders is very weak for me as my constant drops in TD games prove. For getting ready for the show I spent some time looking at the current cabinet members.

I think it's easier to prepare for some nightmare categories than others. Getting up to speed for J! purposes in opera, art and ballet can be done with little effort. Sports and movies can be harder. Shakespeare can be done, but you have to have a good understanding of what J! uses and doesn't.
Vanya
The support is non-zero
Posts: 2727
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2011 12:10 pm
Contact:

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Vanya »

Opera, ldo.
User avatar
SwanShadow
Jeopardy! TOCer
Posts: 467
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:09 pm
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Contact:

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by SwanShadow »

Stephen Liebowitz, a four-time champ whose run began with the game immediately following my fifth win, had a recurring nightmare prior to our 1988 ToC: That Alex would reveal the game board, and all six categories would be titled "Things Stephen Doesn't Know."

I lived that nightmare in my second round UToC game. :lol:
Michael Rankins
ToC '88; Super J! '90; BoBAB '98; UToC '05; BotD Fan Favorite Reject, '14
TenPoundHammer

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by TenPoundHammer »

Happens to me every day.
User avatar
khiddy
Contributor
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:27 pm
Location: Portland-in-Oregon
Contact:

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by khiddy »

My nightmare used to be world capitals (especially in Africa), until I realized that certain countries were simply never going to come up, or if they did, there would be enough context to suss out the correct answer (e.g., wordplay).

Shakespeare was a slog, but I've got him fairly conquered thanks to Charles and Mary Lamb.

Nowadays, it's English royalty.
User avatar
zerobandwidth
That Guy Who Said "Yay!"
Posts: 373
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:21 pm
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by zerobandwidth »

In one of my first playthroughs of Jeopardy! on the Wii, I got categories related to artists, opera, and baseball. I wagered stupidly in the other three categories, trying to make up the gap, and t ended up as the first game I lost to the AI players. I shake my fist at you, Katie and Samuel!
Battle of the Brains contestant, 1995-1997
Jeopardy! match 34:13, 2017-09-27
LearnedLeague: PatersonP (LL76: D Summit Div2)

The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.
— from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
Peggles
Grand Exalted Queen of the Universe
Posts: 851
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2011 12:39 am
Location: Swansea, Massachusetts

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Peggles »

I reviewed some math and science.

If I were going on the show today, my nightmare would be today's pop music and culture. I wouldn't try to cram for the pop music category because then I'd be forced to listen to it.
User avatar
BobF
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 2180
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:03 pm
Location: All over the east coast
Contact:

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by BobF »

I used to teach SAT Prep for Princeton Review, and, along with improving students math skills and vocabulary skills, they improved their general test-taking skills.

That might seem like a really odd non-sequitur here, but there are some lessons from SAT Prep I would certainly carry over to Jeopardy! if I should be fortunate enough to receive THE CALL, and they mostly have to do with how to handle a question based upon its relative difficulty.

One: Avoid and/or clam on categories I'm weak at.

Two: Bet the house on the daily double in round one as that is likely to be the easiest of the 3 daily doubles, and there's usually time to recuperate.

Three: On daily doubles in DJ, the higher the clue appears on the board, the higher my wager should be. I'd likely bet the house on a $400 daily double, but be really conservative on a $2000 daily double.

Now, as for what to study, if you have zero interest in a topic, you're not going to retain things, so just accept the fact that there will be categories you will be weak in. Also, since there are only 12 categories on the show (13 if you count Final), the odds are fairly high you will spend a ton of time studying something that won't come up. I like the one guy's idea to boost your knowledge in an area where your knowledge is kind of middling.
Was once hugged by Maggie Speak!
User avatar
Woof
Swimming in the Jeopardy! Pool
Posts: 5125
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:53 pm

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Woof »

Celebrity marriages
Prime Time Sitcoms :roll:
CoachP
Jeopardy! Champion
Posts: 463
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:24 am

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by CoachP »

History and Geography (as evidenced by second-guessing myself on FJ, luckily I went with my first instinct). They have been the bane of my trivia existence ever since I started playing Trivial Pursuit.

After I got The Call, I bought an Atlas, and also started looking at a History Channel website called This Day in History (or something similar). I felt that reviewing a continent every so often, and looking at that website daily was about the right amount of studying. It may or may not have helped. Ultimately, being relaxed is the best tactic, and pray that if you are on the show, you don't get a board full of your weak categories, because it really can be luck of the draw.
User avatar
Budphrey
Jeopardy! Champion
Posts: 720
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:29 pm

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Budphrey »

I find that literature is a surprising weak point for me, especially novels since 1900 (except those by a certain Indiana native).

Also, I feel incredibly lucky that 21st-century pop culture was a negligible presence in the games I actually played — as opposed to the Beatles, Frankie Avalon and 1970s history.
Poo-tee-weet? So it goes.
User avatar
Magna
Hooked on Jeopardy
Posts: 3079
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:37 pm

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Magna »

My nightmare board would be something like Hockey and Basketball Greats, Cable TV Series, Popular Movies from Two Years Ago, Historic Newscasters, The Novels of Patricia Cornwell, Atomic Theory, and Rap.
User avatar
earendel
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 767
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: mired in the bureaucracy

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by earendel »

My nightmare board would include the following categories: Opera, Celebrity Marriages, Entertainment Awards and Potent Potables. Anything pop culture related is right out as well.
"Elen sila lumenn omentielvo...A star shines on the hour of our meeting."
User avatar
Spaceman Spiff
One-and-done J! Champ (and proud of it!)
Posts: 1010
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 6:10 pm

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

Nightmare category? Anything read by a celebrity (or, for that matter, any video clue by anyone other than the Clue Crew or Alex).
User avatar
Judy5cents
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:02 pm

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Judy5cents »

Bodies of water, be it rivers, lakes, or seas.

Word puzzles I can never unscramble the letters or find the word within the word in time to ring in.

Sports. I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.

Math & Chemistry.

Opera.

Canada
bpmod
Rank
Posts: 5424
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:26 pm
Location: Hamilton Ontario

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by bpmod »

Judy5cents wrote:Sports. I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.
I wouldn't watch anything for the commercials.
Judy5cents wrote:Canada
That seems to be most Jeopardy! contestants' nightmare category.

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
User avatar
Judy5cents
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:02 pm

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by Judy5cents »

Mostly I watch the Superbowl as an excuse to eat junk food and drink beer.

In one of my games, the nightmare category wasn't just Canada--it was Canadian Maritime Provinces. I remember looking at it and thinking I wouldn't know any of them. And I didn't.

I forgot to mention my greatest nightmare category-Before & After. Another one of those categories where there's not enough time for me to figure out what they're going for.
SkeeBallRaif
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 11:13 am

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by SkeeBallRaif »

This has all been really illuminating. I appreciate the advice to just forget about your nightmare categories and instead focus on your middling categories. The thing I worry about is that there are two categories where I am dreadful that come up all the time, the former more than the latter: Poetry, and the Civil War. I'm in "can't venture a decent guess" territory on both of those. But they seem to come up frequently enough that I worry about ignoring them entirely.

Beyond those two, I'm not crazy about Celebrity Marriages (I'm almost always 0-for or 1-for in that category, though it is fortunately relatively rare), Rivers (though that's really studiable), or Old Movies.
SkeeBallRaif
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 11:13 am

Re: Nightmare Categories

Post by SkeeBallRaif »

Budphrey wrote:I find that literature is a surprising weak point for me, especially novels since 1900 (except those by a certain Indiana native).
Ha, non-Vonnegut literature isn't my favorite either :D
Post Reply