Is J! getting easier, or...???

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mas3cf
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Is J! getting easier, or...???

Post by mas3cf »

I recently started keeping my stats for archived games, and I've noticed:

- For games from the 2000s, my average Coryat is around 27k, and my get rate on FJ is in the high 50%s.

- For games from the 2010s, my avg Coryat is closer to 30k, and my get rate on FJ is in the high 60%s.

There are a few possible explanations for this that I can think of:

1. Older games have some material that was current then but obscure now
2. FJ has become more a "riddle" than straight-up knowledge of trivia (anecdotal evidence: for recent games, I rarely have NHOIs, but for older games I have more of them)
3. Maybe it's just me, and somehow J! is evolving to better play to my strengths?

Has anyone else tracked/noticed this? Thoughts?
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triviawayne
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Re: Is J! getting easier, or...???

Post by triviawayne »

When did you start, and how long did it take, and did you start with the older games?

If you began with the older games, I would think #1 is in effect, and if you did this in a short time, then I would say the material became more familiar as you went on.
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mas3cf
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Re: Is J! getting easier, or...???

Post by mas3cf »

triviawayne wrote: Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:42 pm When did you start, and how long did it take, and did you start with the older games?

If you began with the older games, I would think #1 is in effect, and if you did this in a short time, then I would say the material became more familiar as you went on.
Just started in the past month. I have about 100 full games logged, and over 200 FJs, enough sample size to believe the difference is real. I jump back and forth between seasons (staying in the 21st century)... just today, I did about 20 games, roughly evenly split between 2004-07 and 2016-18. Sure enough, the trends held.

Since I posted the question, I did some digging in the J!-Archive stats. It looks like mayyyybe, if you squint your eyes, the trends are there for the contestant population as a whole... so maybe it has something to do with the evolution of the game being more favorable to me? Best guess: in recent years, it's not quite as guaranteed that there'll be a movies category every game (my worst subject by far, and easily my biggest source of NHOI on FJ). Or maybe since the clues/categories are trending more interdisciplinary, you can often get lit/movies/TV clues from year/geography TOM.
MattKnowles
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Re: Is J! getting easier, or...???

Post by MattKnowles »

I think it has gotten easier but not by very much. I track some of my scores and they seem to be a little higher on recent games compared to games in the early 2000s. The games from the 80s seem much more difficult.

I think it could just be natural variation. They might have new writers and editors or the old writers and editors have grown and ripened over time. Even if they try to keep it very uniform there will be some aggregate changes over time.

Another key reason would be that I'm older and I've personally experienced more of the clues from the recent games. If they air a show in 2000 they may have pop culture and media clues from 1940s-2000s, if they air a show in 2020 they may have pop culture clues from 1960s-2020s with only a few clues from before that. If I'm especially good at everything from the 1990s onwards then I should be better at the more recent games.
Last edited by MattKnowles on Mon Sep 09, 2019 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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CasualJeopardyFan19
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Re: Is J! getting easier, or...???

Post by CasualJeopardyFan19 »

Anecdotal response, but I would say yes. From my experience I generally have a pretty hard time answering questions correctly from the old episodes, where as the new ones it is at least 50/50 with the answers I do and do not know. I'm not the brightest bulb on the planet, so I rarely get more than 55% of the board right, but on the few times it has happened, none of them were in the older episodes prior to 2006.
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LucarioSnooperVixey
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Re: Is J! getting easier, or...???

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

As a person who was born in the late 1990's, yes.
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