U. students try out for Jeopardy! tournament

Just barely passing a test isn't always cause for excitement. But when it puts you in a select group of American college students who could get a chance to win thousands of dollars on Jeopardy!, it suddenly becomes more thrilling. College junior Aaron Shapiro was one of only six students from the Philadelphia area who passed the Jeopardy! entrance exam during Friday's tryouts at the WPVI-Channel 6 studios in Center City. The score required for passing the test was 35 out of 50 questions. Shapiro and the other five finalists scored between 35 and 39. Approximately 85 students gathered Friday to take the exam, after first sending in a post card requesting a tryout. The 50 exam questions were all from different categories -- including mythology, dance, government and royalty. "The test I thought was kind of hard, [but] it was kind of what I expected," said Shapiro, who took the test simply to "give it a shot and just have some fun." College junior Steve Leitzell, on the other hand, said the exam was quite difficult -- he knew he had not passed right after taking the test. "They tested you on everything," he said. "When you watch at home, the categories you know you do really well on. You don't really think about the stuff you don't know." Leitzell added, though, that being a history major helped him greatly on all of the history-related questions. After taking the test, the students were treated to a question-and-answer session led by Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Trebek was asked everything from where he went to college (he's a 1960 graduate of Canada's University of Ottawa) to how he pronounces foreign words so well on the show (he looks them up beforehand in foreign dictionaries). Trebek also said he knows about 60 to 65 percent of the answers on the show, and that a "very competent writing staff" is responsible for creating the questions. Other interesting facts that Trebek divulged about himself and the show include: · Jeopardy! asks the equivalent of two and a half "Trivial Pursuit" games each year. It is now in its 11th season. · The show is taped two days a week, three weeks a month, from July until March. · Trebek called Robert Redford's movie Quiz Show "good but not great." · Trebek was not in a fraternity at school because he feels they are an "excuse for stupid behavior -- I had a more serious attitude at school." · Though Trebek knows Wheel of Fortune's Pat Sajak, The Price Is Right's Bob Barker and Family Feud's Richard Dawson, he said they "don't socialize." Shapiro said he will find out in February if he is one of the 15 students nationwide who are selected to appear on the Jeopardy! college tournament, which will air sometime in 1995.

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