After becoming an instant fan-favorite for his first Jeopardy! last September, Drew Goins returned to the Alex Trebek Stage for this week’s Second Chance Tournament and got a bit of redemption for his costly Taylor Swift slip from the first time. As it turns out, he decided to pay extra attention to the world of entertainment this time around, and that effort worked out in his favor as he advances to the finals.
Speaking to TV Insider, Goins revealed how he prepared to go on the game show the first time and what he did differently the second time around to improve his chances of success.
For his first appearance, Goins revealed that he focused on the basics. “I did a lot of studying. A friend who had been on the show recommended this really excellent cultural reference dictionary that’s kind of everything an American needs to know to be well-spoken at a smart person dinner party. There’s sections on the Bible, mythology, the arts, world history, American history, Shakespeare, all of this stuff that recurs over and over again on Jeopardy!” he explained.
Goins added that he also compared the contents of that guide with Jeopardy! clues from the past and even took a surprising tip from one of the GOATs of the show to heart: “I also went through and read a bunch of kids’ encyclopedias or children’s atlases, which is a tip from Jeopardy! super champion James Holzhauer, who said that you can make your way through them really quickly, and they’re easy to remember because they have pictures or fun ways to think about things,” Goins explained. “In most Jeopardy! games, you only need to know the kind of top-level information about something, and kids’ encyclopedias have way more information than you would give them credit for, too.”
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Though his first bid wasn’t a success — as he finished second against David Erb — he still put on a strong showing and credits all that preparation for his success.
“There’s no better feeling on Jeopardy!, apart from winning, than nailing a clue that you got exclusively because you studied it,” Goins said. “There were a couple times where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I did not know this fact until I set out to learn this fact.’ It is because of the studying, which, for the longest time, feels like it’s not. It’s like, ‘How do I learn about the whole world? None of this is going to pay off.’ And then you land on a question, and you’re $800 in the lead because you went out and learned about Puccini or whatever subject that you didn’t know about before.”
So when it came to the next round, as he competed in the Second Chance series, he once again hit the books — only, he turned his eye towards other subjects beyond the obvious.
“I definitely branched out more. There were some subjects that I felt weak on that I really wanted to shore up, like some movie history and a lot of pop culture before I was born. Movies, music, especially mid-century TV, that sort of thing, which was really hard for me. I just studied more,” Goins admitted. “I think when I went on the first time, I was less confident. I was like, ‘Should I study, or should I surf? What are the odds that I’m gonna win? I’m probably not gonna win. I’ll just go surf.’ And then I came so close that I was like, ‘Drew, you can win. You better get your a** in gear and study, study, study.’ I definitely did more of it. I took it more seriously.”
Jeopardy!, weeknights, check local listings
– Additional reporting by Avery Thompson
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