Not sure about trying out

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Spaceman Spiff
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

okstater04 wrote:Plus, as almost everyone else has said, if you get the call, that's a BIG DEAL. TAKE THEM UP ON IT, unless you know your partner is giving birth that day or your child is getting married.
As a fellow Alabama alum has publicly stated, not even children getting married trump important things like J! (Or "the third Saturday in October" tradition).
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Spaceman Spiff
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

jpahk wrote:
dhkendall wrote:Is there any good resource to practice the buzzer?
i'll say no, there isn't. and actually, in some sense, there can't be. everyone at the tapings gets a chance to practice for a few minutes (and people who are still there after lunch get a second chance), and that's about it. if you wait for the lights to come on and rely on being fast, i guess this is the sort of thing you could practice in advance—it's not that hard to write a computer program to measure your reaction time to some lights coming on, and i imagine it could be (very slightly) improved with practice. but if you use this method, you have to be very very fast. i think most people would be better off trying to anticipate the lights, and that's something that you just can't practice because you have to get in sync with the guy (matthew, i think his name is) at the production table who activates them when alex is done reading.

i suppose if you had a very dedicated training partner (spouse, i guess—or a really really good friend), you could jigger some kind of setup so that they could play matthew while you watch the show on TV, and then tell you whether you buzzed in too early (which seems to be more common than buzzing in too late for people who try this method). but of course, all you'd really be doing is getting used to your partner's own timing, not matthew's.
For the second tryout (the in-person test), the buzzer play is less of a problem. They're looking to see how you react to being called, and don't necessarily choose the first one that buzzed in. They also check on your mechanics and will coach you on this -- don't hold the buzzer in one hand and slap with the other (the noise is picked up on the mike), don't just punch it once, don't push it and hold it, etc.

For Culver City, there's been discussions elsewhere on how to use the buzzer. Now, even at my age, I have pretty fast reflexes. But the problem I found was that the lights used on the board in the studio were small enough that I wasn't picking them up in my peripheral vision very well at first - the ones used in the field test were pretty prominent. I ended up falling back on the "timing Alex's last sylable" trick (which stank on the video clues, where I went back to reacting to the lights - I think I rang in first on two of those out of fifteen over two games).

But, cart before the horse. Don't let worry about the buzzer worry you now. Just take the online test and -- here's the biggest thing -- have fun. If you get to the next level, have more fun and let them see it.
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by alamble »

Lefty wrote:
jpahk wrote:is there any reason they would lie about it, as opposed to just refusing to say anything at all about the selection criteria? it also makes sense from the perspective of their own incentives: the only thing that makes jeopardy unfun to watch is when the contestants look clueless up there. (at least for me, this is much worse as a viewing experience than when a contestant is knowledgeable but has no personality.) the best way to avoid that is to have knowledge be the biggest factor in contestant selection.

I have been told things by coordinators over the years that were patently false (e.g., that they were going to eliminate celebrity week, because it was silly and a waste of time. That season, they added an extra celebrity week). I agree with you as to what makes for a good viewing experience, but as for the selection process, I put more faith in what data I have than in what the coordinators choose to say publicly.
The contestant coordinators are not the producers, and the producers are the ones who determine what special weeks/tourneys are included in a given season. It is entirely possible for example, that the information you were given about Celebrity Week was accurate at the time, and was changed later. Additionally, given that NO ONE is ever told exactly how they did on either the online or written tests, the data you're putting so much faith in is flawed at best. I see no purpose in assuming the worst about the contestant coordinators and the information they choose to share.
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Turd Ferguson »

jpahk wrote:is there any reason they would lie about it, as opposed to just refusing to say anything at all about the selection criteria? it also makes sense from the perspective of their own incentives: the only thing that makes jeopardy unfun to watch is when the contestants look clueless up there. (at least for me, this is much worse as a viewing experience than when a contestant is knowledgeable but has no personality.) the best way to avoid that is to have knowledge be the biggest factor in contestant selection.
I don't think anybody is lying here, rather that some people may be interpreting things in a way they might not be intended. Saying that the test scores are the "most important" factor in determining who gets on the show does not necessarily mean that the people with the highest scores will automatically get on the show, or even that scoring a near-perfect score will substantially improve an auditioner's chances of being called. As stated by others, "anecdotal evidence" does not suggest that this is the case.

What this "anecdotal evidence" DOES suggest is that if you "fail" the online test, you have no chance of getting an audition. I would suspect that someone who "fails" the written test (criteria unknown) at the audition also has no chance of getting The Call. i.e. No matter how great the Co-ordinators think one might be on the show, if you mess up the tests, you're not getting on the show. If this is the case, then yes, I would say that how one does on the test is the *most important* factor in getting on the show. Does getting 49/50 give one a better chance of being called than getting 36/50? I'd think so, yes, but I suspect that "other factors" are more important, once the "minimum score" is reached. And I don't think that suggestion in any way contradicts anything the co-ordinators have been known to say.

In my case, I'm pretty sure I got no more than 37/50 on the online test (thanks to folks here for that knowledge), and while I might've done a bit better on the test at the audition , there were more than a handful of responses that I did not get. (I didn't even get the Reality TV question, which I thought was a bad sign). Still, despite what I thought was an awkward interview, I did eventually get the call. I did genuinely enjoy the whole audition process, and I guess that it did show and thus help my chances. (Perhaps my favourite part of the taping was while getting ready for the Winner's Circle interview, Maggie told me it looked like I was having fun onstage, and that they really like seeing that.)

As for the original question, if someone doesn't "know enough" to do well on the show, they're not going to pass the tests anyways. Anybody that makes it on the show is going to know enough to do okay. Do I know more now than I did when I auditioned or taped? I'm pretty sure I do, but with "luck" being such a big factor, that certainly doesn't necessarily mean I'd do better on the show now, so I have no regrets on going on when I did. The "worst" thing that can happen from trying out too "early" is getting The Call, and that doesn't seem too bad to me!
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jpahk
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by jpahk »

to be completely clear: maggie and corina said that the test scores were the #1 determining factor for which players get the call from the players already in the contestant pool. obviously, if you bomb the online test you're not getting an audition to begin with, but that's not what we're talking about.

now, i acknowledge that it does not necessarily follow that somebody who scores 45/50 on the written test has a better shot at the call than somebody who scores 35/50, even ceteris paribus. but i can't imagine there are tons of people who are passing the online test and then failing the written test at the audition, especially as the conditions of the written test are significantly easier (you can go back and enter/change an answer to any previous question, not just the current one, until time is called for question 50). if this is in fact rare, then the only sensible remaining interpretation is that doing better on the tests increases your chances at the call.

finally, i would just like to point out that anecdotal evidence, even a fairly large amount of it, has nothing to tell us about a process involving as much randomness (or what might as well be randomness) as this one. this is especially true when the people who offer up the anecdotal evidence are more likely to do so if it it seems counter-intuitive and therefore of interest.
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Turd Ferguson »

jpahk wrote:to be completely clear: maggie and corina said that the test scores were the #1 determining factor for which players get the call from the players already in the contestant pool. obviously, if you bomb the online test you're not getting an audition to begin with, but that's not what we're talking about.
I think it was suggested that scores in the online test would be factored into the decision, and that "test scores" would be considered. Why would they consider just the written test score, but not the online test score? (Assuming that data would be retained). I also suspect that a non-trivial percentage of people who pass the online test do so with some form of help (other people in the room, google, etc).
jpahk wrote:now, i acknowledge that it does not necessarily follow that somebody who scores 45/50 on the written test has a better shot at the call than somebody who scores 35/50, even ceteris paribus. but i can't imagine there are tons of people who are passing the online test and then failing the written test at the audition, especially as the conditions of the written test are significantly easier (you can go back and enter/change an answer to any previous question, not just the current one, until time is called for question 50). if this is in fact rare, then the only sensible remaining interpretation is that doing better on the tests increases your chances at the call.
Is there any reason to think that the written test has the same "pass criteria" as we ascribe to the online test? Perhaps there is a minimum, and it's higher than 35/50?

I don't think anyone has ever suggested that doing better on the test doesn't increase your chances... just that other factors are more important (and that saying so does not necessarily mean that what the co-ordinators have said are "lies"). It's obvious that there is a near-50/50 male/female contestant distribution, if test scores were indeed the "most important" criteria, how likely is it that this distribution would occur (given the makeup of most audition groups)?
Last edited by Turd Ferguson on Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by alietr »

jpahk wrote:to be completely clear: maggie and corina said that the test scores were the #1 determining factor for which players get the call from the players already in the contestant pool.

now, i acknowledge that it does not necessarily follow that somebody who scores 45/50 on the written test has a better shot at the call than somebody who scores 35/50, even ceteris paribus.
Maybe I'm missing something, but these two statements seem to be contradictory.
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Volante »

jpahk wrote: ...now, i acknowledge that it does not necessarily follow that somebody who scores 45/50 on the written test has a better shot at the call than somebody who scores 35/50, even ceteris paribus. but i can't imagine there are tons of people who are passing the online test and then failing the written test at the audition...
Especially considering there aren't tons of people at the auditions to begin with! 8-)
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Lefty
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Lefty »

alamble wrote:The contestant coordinators are not the producers, and the producers are the ones who determine what special weeks/tourneys are included in a given season. It is entirely possible for example, that the information you were given about Celebrity Week was accurate at the time, and was changed later. Additionally, given that NO ONE is ever told exactly how they did on either the online or written tests, the data you're putting so much faith in is flawed at best. I see no purpose in assuming the worst about the contestant coordinators and the information they choose to share.
I'm not putting faith in anything, it the sense of letting it affect my behavior. I take the test when I can, try to score as well as I can, and let the chips fall where they may. And I don't assume the worst about anybody, I simply put most credence in what the best evidence available to me suggests. As far as my own test scores are concerned, I am very confident I can determine within a point or two how I did nearly all the time.
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Rex Kramer
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Rex Kramer »

jpahk wrote:now, i acknowledge that it does not necessarily follow that somebody who scores 45/50 on the written test has a better shot at the call than somebody who scores 35/50, . . . . if this is in fact rare, then the only sensible remaining interpretation is that doing better on the tests increases your chances at the call.
It could just as well be that doing better on the tests only helps up to a point, and doing any better than that has no effect, or even is harmful. It's like noting that height is the single most important qualification to be a Radio City Music Hall Rockette.
jpahk wrote:finally, i would just like to point out that anecdotal evidence, even a fairly large amount of it, has nothing to tell us about a process involving as much randomness (or what might as well be randomness) as this one. this is especially true when the people who offer up the anecdotal evidence are more likely to do so if it it seems counter-intuitive and therefore of interest.
Whether or not it is truthful, what Maggie and Corina told you is notable in that it's unfalsifiable; of the many factors that might enter into the decision to select a particular contestant (looks, demographics, charisma, sense of humor, obedience, speed of thought, etc.), the only one that we will never learn is that contestant's score on the tests . . . because the CCs don't release that information, even to the contestants. (Of course, there will be a few who come to these Boards and report a fairly confident self-assessment of their scores . . . but then we're back in the realm of "anecdote".) There is no reason to assume Maggie and Corina were lying, yet we also can't ignore the consistent efforts of the CCs to give out as little of this kind of info as possible, and focusing on the one element that remains in the dark is a pretty effective way of doing that.

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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by kickerofelves »

Rex Kramer wrote:Whether or not it is truthful, what Maggie and Corina told you is notable in that it's unfalsifiable; of the many factors that might enter into the decision to select a particular contestant (looks, demographics, charisma, sense of humor, obedience, speed of thought, etc.)
I recall being told at my first in-person interview that when they select each shooting's worth of contestants, they definitely make an effort to be demographically diverse - different ages, locations, backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, 'look', etc. - and that they won't have two of the same name in the same batch.

So, being in some way 'remarkable' in one or more of those factors can only help, I would think.

Not that it's of much help to me... lol.

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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Magna »

Fwiw, at my audition the coordinators told us the purpose of the in-person test was to validate our online test scores. If someone scored 49 online but 2 in person, for example, they'd know something was up. I didn't get the impression that there was a particular passing score, but they did tell the whole group we all passed.

They also made clear they were looking for people who could speak audibly and clearly, look interested, and select the next answer quickly, and this seems plausible to me. If you couldn't do at least that much, they couldn't possibly put you on the show no matter how good your scores were.

About the scores being the most important factor, I notice they didn't say they were looking for the highest scores (or at least, the OP didn't report it that way). In the early days, as I understand, they used scores for the purpose of scheduling and "seeding" the contestants. If they're doing something like that now, and if are were a cluster of people in your score range who were either really good or really bad in person, it could affect your chances of getting on.

(Edit: to be clear, the third paragraph is commenting on someone's report of what contestant coordinators said at that person's audition, about the importance of scores.)
Last edited by Magna on Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by dhkendall »

Magna wrote:Fwiw, at my audition the coordinators told us the purpose of the in-person test was to validate our online test scores. If someone scored 49 online but 2 in person, for example, they'd know something was up. I didn't get the impression that there was a particular passing score, but they did tell the whole group we all passed.

They also made clear they were looking for people who could speak audibly and clearly, look interested, and select the next answer quickly, and this seems plausible to me. If you couldn't do at least that much, they couldn't possibly put you on the show no matter how good your scores were.

About the scores being the most important factor, I notice they didn't say they were looking for the highest scores (or at least, the OP didn't report it that way). In the early days, as I understand, they used scores for the purpose of scheduling and "seeding" the contestants. If they're doing something like that now, and if are were a cluster of people in your score range who were either really good or really bad in person, it could affect your chances of getting on.
When was your audition, Magna?
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Re: Not sure about trying out

Post by Magna »

September, 2009. Because I was still in the database, I wasn't eligible for last year's online exam.
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