Jeopardy! Teen Tournament facts for kids
The Jeopardy! Teen Tournament is a special yearly competition on the American TV game show Jeopardy!. It brings together smart middle school and high school students, usually between 13 and 18 years old, to test their knowledge.
The tournament works a lot like the regular Tournament of Champions. Fifteen contestants play over two weeks.
Contents
How the Tournament Works
- Quarterfinals: The first five games are the quarterfinals. Each day, three new students compete. The winner of each game moves on to the next round.
- Wild Cards: The four students who lost their games but had the highest scores also get to move on. They are called "wild card" players.
- Ties: If there's a tie at the end of a game, they play a special "Final Jeopardy!"-style question. The first player to buzz in with the right answer wins!
- Zero Scores: If all three players end up with zero points, none of them move on. Then, an extra "wild card" spot opens up for another high-scoring loser.
- Semifinals: The next three games are the semifinals. The three winners from these games move on to the finals.
- Finals: The last two games are the two-day finals. In these games, contestants start with zero points each day. Their scores from both days are added together. The student with the highest total score wins the tournament! The other two finalists win smaller cash prizes.
How Contestants Are Chosen
Over the years, the way students get picked for the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament has changed.
Getting Picked in the 1990s
Back then, students who wanted to be on the show would mail postcards to Jeopardy!. About 1,200 teens were randomly chosen from these postcards. They were invited to travel (at their own cost) to one of four testing places, like Houston or Los Angeles. There, they took a timed written test with 50 questions read by Alex Trebek on a video screen.
If they passed the test, they were invited back for an interview and a practice game using the buzzers. Their photos were taken, and they filled out a sheet with fun facts about themselves. These facts might be used by Alex Trebek during the show's interview part. Students who were chosen were told about one to two months later. Then, they flew to Los Angeles to film the show. All the games were filmed over just two days!
Getting Picked in the 2000s
In the 2000s, students started signing up on the Jeopardy! website instead of sending postcards. A certain number of registered students were invited to try out and take a written test at a regional audition.
Getting Picked from 2006 to Today
Since 2006, all students who sign up on the website take a 50-question online test. This test is usually in late February. Students have 15 seconds to type in their answer for each question.
A random group of those who pass the online test are then invited to regional auditions in November. These auditions happen in four different places across the United States. At these auditions, students take another 50-question written test, have interviews, and play practice games. Usually, about 300 students are invited to these regional auditions, and only 15 are chosen for the show.
Prizes for Winners
The prizes for the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament have also changed over the years.
| Year(s) | Finalists (guaranteed amounts) | Semifinalists | Quarterfinalists | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | Second place | Third place | |||
| 1987-Winter 1997 | $25,000
(and a spot in the Tournament of Champions) |
$10,000 | $7,500 | $5,000 | $1,000 |
| Fall 1997–2000 | $15,000 | $10,000 | $2,500 | ||
| 2001 | $50,000 | ||||
| 2002–2003 | $20,000 | $15,000 | |||
| 2004–2005 | $75,000 | $25,000 | |||
| 2006–2014 | $10,000 | $5,000 | |||
| 2016−present | $100,000 | $50,000 | $25,000 | ||
Other Cool Prizes
- Until 2000, all Teen Tournament winners were invited to play in the Tournament of Champions.
- In some years (1999, 2001-2003), the Teen Tournament winner also won a brand new car! These included a Chevrolet Cavalier, a Chevrolet Tracker, a Mitsubishi Eclipse GS Convertible, and a Volkswagen New Beetle.
- In 2005, contestants in the Teen Tournament won a computer package.
- Some Teen Tournament winners were even invited back to play in special "all-time best" Jeopardy! tournaments later on. For example, Eric Newhouse (1989 winner) played in several big tournaments, and Leonard Cooper (2013 winner) was part of a team in the 2019 All-Star Games.
Images for kids
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Griffin Award
See also
In Spanish: Anexo:Torneos y acontecimientos de Jeopardy! para niños
