7:58 a.m., Dec. 8, 2008----Christine Gorowara, a director in the University of Delaware's School of Education, is scheduled to appear on the popular Jeopardy! game show television program on Thursday, Dec. 11.

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Gorowara, vice president of the Audits Teacher Education Accreditation Council, first tested to be on the show in the spring of 2007.

“Apparently I did well enough to be invited to take an in-person test with about 80 others in Philadelphia in June, 2007,” Gorowara said. “The contestant coordinators told us that they would keep our names in their files for 18 months. I had forgotten all about taking the test when I got the call this September.”

The show was taped in Los Angeles on Oct 15, with more than one-third of the contestants being teachers or professors, Gorowara said.

A week's worth of shows are taped daily, Gorowara noted, with no one knowing which sets of questions will be used until the morning of the taping.

“One of the most fun parts of the show is getting to know the other contestants,” Gorowara said. “Eleven or twelve new contestants are brought out to Los Angeles for each day of taping, and with the exception of the returning champ, nobody knows who will play on which show.”

With so many things to pay attention to, including reading the clue on the game board, listening to the cue being read, watching the lights on either side of the game board that indicate when contestants can answer, being a contestant can become a bit overwhelming, Gorowara said.

“I didn't listen closely to Alex Trebek reading the clue aloud. I didn't realize that he mispronounced a word in a clue until he re-recorded his reading during one of the commercial breaks,” Gorowara said. “I also never looked at the score until the breaks, so I didn't know how I was doing during the course of the game.”

To see how Gorowara made out, tune in to Jeopardy! on WPVI-TV Channel 6 (also Channel 6 on Comcast), at 7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 11.

Article by Jerry Rhodes