EOC Week Three: Jeopardy

I have never truly been a fan of the television game show Jeopardy. I have anything against it; it just feels somewhat boring to me; reminiscent of the old show M*A*S*H, which I also never really got into. Not to suggest that I avoid watching the show by any means. If someone happens to be watching Jeopardy when I walk into the room I will usually sit down and join in with guessing the answers aloud. I would never be so rude as to ask them to change the channel. At times like these I acquire a vague understanding of the interest surrounding the program. Still, I always believed Jeopardy to be a game show that only grandparents watched. I wonder what types of lives people live that draw them into watching Jeopardy so religiously. In either event I am not one of those people, nor do I intend to be. I am, however, being drawn into a more intimate relationship with the series. Today Mr. Pinto assigned a Jeopardy project for his Contracts, Negotiations and Copyrights class at the Art Institute of Las Vegas. For the project, I need to create a Jeopardy game using the definitions from our book. Everyone has the same project so I am excited to see how many people are choosing the same words, if any. As I flip through my book in search of a definition to use I notice a recurring process in my head. First I ask myself if the definition is too simple; a definition so common that merely using it suggests a non-existent belief that my colleagues are of a lower average intelligence. An example of such a term would be one of the $100 level questions which reads; “paid to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when obtaining a patent”; the answer being “Fees”. It seems like common knowledge, but is it? Then there are times when I come a across a term in my book that I myself could not possibly guess. An example of such a term would be one of the $500 level questions which reads; “This organization was created by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) for the purpose of enforcing the intellectual property and other trade agreements contained in that treaty”; the answer being “World Trade Organization”. So a new process arises in my mind. If the creator of a game cannot even conclude the correct answer to his own game without the text from which it’s derived, how could he expect the other players to? In closing; this project will challenge the way I think and force relationships between terms that I otherwise would never know. It’s a great exercise in learning methodologies.