Jeopardy! and Literature

[Winchell Factor]

My copy of Ferrill's Cultural Literacy and Trivia Guide is pretty heavily annotated. Sometimes it's because the answers in the book were wrong, and sometimes it's because they were out-of-date. (Think, for example, how many European monarchies have changed hands in the last few years.) But it's also completely dog-eared. I used it extensively (and it worked out pretty well for me!).

[Golf]

Does anyone know how to download the J archive questions and put them on anki cards?

I'd love to know how to do this. Especially after tonight's repeat FJ clue.

[BoK]

Does anyone know how to download the J archive questions and put them on anki cards?

Somebody has already done this: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1283680198
Not the whole archive though. "Only" about 58000 cards compared to the archive 277000 questions. Haven't looked at the deck myself yet.

[cinemaniax7]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, now in its fifth edition. I spent some time making flash cards from it a few years back. I found it an enjoyable read.

[This Is Kirk!]

And today I learned what an "Anki card" is...

[doihavetoreally]

Re Ferrill's book, I agree on both counts - it is a good book to figure out what to know. Also, it has too many spelling mistakes and errors.

For those who have the book - is the book any different from the website?

Might also want to check Masterpieces of World Literature by Magill. I didn't finish it, but has good summaries - on my long to-do list!

[boson]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, now in its fifth edition. I spent some time making flash cards from it a few years back. I found it an enjoyable read.

ahem... a few posts before yours.

[lbligh]

Does anyone know how to download the J archive questions and put them on anki cards?

Somebody has already done this: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1283680198
Not the whole archive though. "Only" about 58000 cards compared to the archive 277000 questions. Haven't looked at the deck myself yet.

I have been using Anki lately and find it a very helpful tool.

Sadly, the above link to Ankiweb doesn't work. Any idea what the name of the Anki deck is? I searched on"Jeopardy" and got nothing.

[cinemaniax7]

Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia

[RunningUtes]

I was going through some old questions on J! Archive and noticed that there are lots of media files missing. For example check out the Double Jeopardy section here (http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3430) in the SEE & SAY category.

http://www.j-archive.com/media/2010-07-06_DJ_26.jpg for instance is missing.

Anyone know where to get these old media files?

I ran a quick check and out of the 10,524 media files in all 216,932 questions from all seasons, there are about 3,911 files missing on the server.

Right now I have 216,000 Anki flashcards that are formatted to look like the screen on Jeopardy. It is pretty cool.
Anki will play media files like mp3 and will show jpg images.

[dhkendall]

I was going through some old questions on J! Archive and noticed that there are lots of media files missing. For example check out the Double Jeopardy section here (http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3430) in the SEE & SAY category.

http://www.j-archive.com/media/2010-07-06_DJ_26.jpg for instance is missing.

Anyone know where to get these old media files?

I ran a quick check and out of the 10,524 media files in all 216,932 questions from all seasons, there are about 3,911 files missing on the server.

Right now I have 216,000 Anki flashcards that are formatted to look like the screen on Jeopardy. It is pretty cool.
Anki will play media files like mp3 and will show jpg images.

This is a common question for newbies, but gets asked frequently around here.

Basically, the entry of information in the Archive is staffed by volunteer Archivists. Some of them put in the clue text, some of them put in the media files. All of them are volunteer and do it when they can (and there is always a need for more Archivists who are established in the J! fan community and can devote time to it). Right now we are more behind on media files than we are on clue text (although we are behind on both.

So bear with us, the files will come eventually.

[morbeedo]

I am trying to improve my Coryat score/improve my chances on the online test. However, one of my weaknesses is literature. I was wondering how to study literature for the show besides Shakespeare.

Read.

LOL.

You have to study for the test, so to speak, so you should know that Daniel Defoe wrote Moll Flanders, but don't waste your time reading it. There was literally a Jeopardy clue, LITERARY TITLE FIRST NAMES: Ms. Flanders, and the response was Moll. That said, I majored in French Lit., so I missed out on a lot of English and other World Lit. I just read Moll Flanders and was totally blown away by it, but imagine how much trivia I could have learned in those 20+ hours!!

Jeopardy material can be strange. They love to ask about Jules Verne - a French guy who wrote popular novels but someone I never read in college or grad school. So the comment about reviewing the archive is spot on.

Literature is a wide category, so first review what you know, then expand your knowledge starting with major writers / works.

Off the top of my head:

Russian Lit: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Pasternak, Pushkin
French: Flaubert, Proust, Hugo, Voltaire, Sartre, Camus, De Beauvoir, Balzac (The Human Comedy), Molière and maybe Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Montaigne, Rabelais
Spanish / Latin American: Cervantes, Márquez, Allende, Neruda, Paz
Italian: Dante, Petrarch (sonnets), Boccaccio (Decameron), Pirandello (drama, Six Characters in Search of an Author)
German: Mann, Hesse, Grass, Goethe
African-American: Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Morrison, Walker, Angelou

Look at Nobel Prize winners for Literature

Some reading lists:
Columbia College Literature & Humanities
Reading lists based on Columbia College courses

Read.

[Blue Lion]

DIckens comes up often, as do Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters. Among modern authors, Stephen King comes up quite a bit.

Poems by Poe, Longfellow, and Frost are popular with clue writers.

Expect to see questions about children's and YA literature. These can be problematic for older players and/or those who don't have kids because a lot of the questions are about recently-published books. It's a good idea to study the list of Newbery Award winners. Also, expect to see questions about C.S. Lewis and Judy Blume and, especially, the Harry Potter series.

It's also worth looking at the New York Times fiction best-seller list once in a while. John Grisham, Lee Child (Jack Reacher), James Patterson (Alex Cross; books with numbers in their titles), and Sue Grafton (Kinsey Milhorne) have had multiple #1 best-sellers in recent years.

[IronNeck]

Nothing replaces reading for being familiar with an author and their works, but I've found the published Sporcle quizzes on literature to be a good indication of the canon Jeopardy writers like, too. Which is an important point, since there is no common canon nowadays.

[goatman]

Steven Ferrill's original book "The Cultural Literacy Trivia Guide" is filled with errors. Did he correct these with his updated "Game Show Trivia"?

NOt really. THere's a thread on this board with many of the errors. I wrote to him about it but no response. I guess I gotta rite my own bok without erors. Stil a gud gide tho!

PS He DID add a lot of neato stuf liek animal groups which is a murder wrapped in an implausibility rolled into an obstinacy; don't gaggle ur skeins on it but dazzle us with a kaleidoscope of cluttered cacophonies while convocating in exultation, and do observe parliamentary procedure for troops in the army and scurry after you crash, should you float ur bloat in the moat!

Click this link to learn more from TinkerBells friend Faun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8vg2zy1DJg

[RunningUtes]

So bear with us, the files will come eventually.

No problem!

Just was wondering if there was a WAY to help also. I don't really know how to update the photos.