If so, you may just be able to keep up with the fifth- and sixth- grade students that participated in a citywide elementary school Jeopardy competition Monday at Booth Hill School.
Students from Mohegan School, Booth Hill School, and Elizabeth School made up the six teams that went head to head on questions drawn from two books - "The View from Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg and "The Picture of Hollis Woods" by Patricia Reilly Giff - that they had read before the game.
The triumphant team of five Mohegan School students credited their win to good teamwork and the fact that they had all read the assigned books.
"They were both really interesting," said Gajaan Sittambalam, a member of "Mrs. Tyer's Miraculous Reading Muffins," as the team dubbed itself.
Greg Martin, who also was on the winning team, said his team's strategy was to divide up roles. Sean Gracie was the fastest with the buzzer while his other teammates - Dan Mocarski, Gajaan, and Dan Frndjbachian - answered many of the questions.
"I'm back-up," Greg said.
Fifth- and sixth- graders first read books and compete within their classrooms, and then the competition extends to the whole school. Finally, at the city-wide level, teams from three elementary schools face off on questions from two new books.
The books were chosen by the school's reading consultants and are usually award-winning works, said Carla Sullivan, vice-president of the Shelton PTA Council and the organizer of the event.
Parent volunteers then read the books and come up with a list of questions that is used during the final Literary Jeopardy competition.
Sullivan said that she wants to see the challenge expand to the city's three other elementary schools.
"I hope to get all the elementary schools involved," she said, adding that she would like to see the annual event take place in the new 5-6 grade school when it opens.
The program began at Booth Hill School, and then spread to two other schools as a way to encourage active reading, Sullivan said.
In 2004, an I.D.E.A. (Interesting and Different Educational Activities) grant helped the program develop by allowing organizers to purchase the technology they use today, including a screen and monitor system that keeps track of the teams' scores and displays the questions.
Though the game was always modeled on the TV version, it originally used cards rather than a computer.
"We're constantly trying to improve it," Sullivan said.
Organizing the competition requires a lot of volunteer time as well as funds for the schools to buy the necessary books.
However, Sullivan said it serves its purpose by getting the students reading and teaching them teamwork.
The teachers do not supervise the teams' preparation. Instead, the students have to figure out how to effectively cover the material themselves.
The winning team members said they all read the assigned books and prepared possible questions in advance.
"It was exciting and dramatic," Greg said of the game, and his teammates agreed that it was fun to read the books in preparation.
"Reading is very enjoyable," Gajaan said.
The young Jeopardy competitors, like their TV game show counterparts, choose questions from categories including "Head Honchos," "Twists and Turns," and "Believe it or Not."
The questions tested them on subjects from biology ("name the parts of the human eye in the order that light reaches them") to specific questions about plot and details from the book ("what is Hollis' favored colored pencil?")
In the end, some of the adults present were more daunted by the questions than the students were.
Superintendent of Schools Robin Willink, who has served as the host - or Alex Trebek - of the show for several years, was surprised by how difficult they were this year.
"These are the hardest questions I've ever seen," she said.
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