"Millionaire" Study Guide

[MysteryMan-123]

What would you tell a potential WWTBAM contestant to study if he or she wants to win the top prize? This thread was created with the intention of compiling all resources to help that contestant study for the game.

[bazodee]

Start exhibiting curiosity when you are 5 years old.

At this stage in life you're not going to jam pack facts into your head, so I would...
... look at all the questions that have been asked and analyze how they are written. The question writers often embed clues that will guide you
... read People Magazine/Entertainment Weekly for the few months prior to your appearance. It's mostly fluff but you may be able to avoid burning a lifeline on some easy pop culture question and it's material that is pretty easy to absorb (and then forget)

Memorizing the list of Vice-Presidential wives is not going to help you. That's the wrong way to go.
And no one has won the $1 Million competitively since 2003, so set more realistic expectations and develop a game playing strategy that helps reach those goals.

[Ritterskoop]

This is my Jeopardy! study advice. Adapt for the show of your choice.

Make three lists of categories of material:

Things you know - don't study these. You know them. Seriously, don't waste time locking in stuff you already know. You will just get a false sense of confidence. OK, it won't be false, but there are better uses of your time.

Things you don't know - don't study these. It's too late. Don't waste your time, except for reading EW as advised. I subscribe to it and think it's pretty good. Way better than most entries in its genre.

Things you once knew - this is where you put most of your energy. State capitals, chemical symbols, the countries of South America. These will be less relevant for BAM than Jeopardy!, but make your lists. Watch the show. Track what they ask about. Make your lists based on that.

[Bob Juch]

Memorize the entire knowledge of humankind. Or at least buy a world map or a globe.

[triviawayne]

You can't really study facts for Millionaire, the questions are all over the place.

You should know the basics:

states and capitals
countries and capitals
elements

you can get to know a little pop culture of the past 30 years

top movies each year
oscar winners each year
top songs each year
grammy winners each year

keep up with current events, lots of current events come up on the show.

keep up with current pop culture as well

browse tmz.com every day
every week, check the top 10 movies on imdb and watch the previews of movies new to the list
check billboard every week for popular songs

the above is all for questions, but there's more to it than that.

study the show--get to know the writing style of the questions, many times you may not know an answer to a question, but you will know what answer choices are wrong. most of the time, if the answer is a number, B or C will be the correct choice and 50/50 will leave you with those.

when there, it is very scary to know that one wrong answer ends your game. Probably not a good idea to play with that in mind (wish I would've put that out of my mind). For some reason, I found the 20-foot tall question in front of me to be a bit intimidating. Try and put everything out of your head and play as if you are on the couch at home so you don't overthink things or second guess yourself (this is what ruined me).

[Bob78164]

Things you don't know - don't study these. It's too late.

I don't agree with this part of your advice, at least for Jeopardy! and probably not for Millionaire either. You're not going to obtain deep knowledge in an unfamiliar subject area, but you don't need it, and it's often possible to gain superficial knowledge of the basics fairly quickly. I thought the time I spent reading Opera for Dummies before my taping was useful. It enabled me to compete for responses as to which I would otherwise have been clueless (so to speak). --Bob

[Bob Juch]

Things you don't know - don't study these. It's too late.

I don't agree with this part of your advice, at least for Jeopardy! and probably not for Millionaire either. You're not going to obtain deep knowledge in an unfamiliar subject area, but you don't need it, and it's often possible to gain superficial knowledge of the basics fairly quickly. I thought the time I spent reading Opera for Dummies before my taping was useful. It enabled me to compete for responses as to which I would otherwise have been clueless (so to speak). --Bob

I studied a summary of operas many, many years ago; it came in handy then and since.

The only thing I studied before my "Millionaire" taping was "Desperate Housewives" -- its actors, characters, and relationships -- because they had one or two questions per week about the show. Of course, I got one, the all-important $25K question, and it was about something I hadn't studied, their occupations.

[Ritterskoop]

I did make a bunch of lists of 10 operas to know, five Supreme Court cases, five architects, like that. Those notebooks are still out in the world somewhere.

I just feel like that time would have been better spent on reviewing more likely topics.

Some of this depends on where you are in the process.

[Ritterskoop]

Another way to put it:

On nearly every test, one answer out of 30 was something I had learned in the previous week. Everything else was stuff already in there, much of which had been refreshed during studying.

World Series of Pop Culture: Zeus and Apollo were Tom Selleck's dogs on Magnum

The successful Jeopardy test: Elaine Chao was Secretary of Labor that year (PS you should always have a Dickens novel ready to go on a J test)

I don't recall anything new on the BAM test; it was all either prior knowledge or lucky guesses.

[tlynn78]

Skoop, I saw a t-shirt the other day and thought of you:

"Dorothy on the streets, Blanche in the sheets"

lol

To be clear, I'm referencing Skoop's appreciation of the Golden Girls, and Bea Arthur in particular, not any personal habits she may or may not have.

[Catfish]

Skoop, I saw a t-shirt the other day and thought of you:

"Dorothy on the streets, Blanche in the sheets"

lol

To be clear, I'm referencing Skoop's appreciation of the Golden Girls, and Bea Arthur in particular, not any personal habits she may or may not have.

Hee-hee. I thought you meant Dorothy Gale and Blanche DuBois.

[goongas]

I just don't think J! material and BAM material are too compatible anymore. I don't mean any offense to anyone, but when you have Jeopardy super players (Tournament of Champion winners and other very successful champions) not win over $50,000, or struggle to make it there, it just shows me that the show does not want to give away a lot of money anymore. It seems to me a reasonable goal now is to win $50,000, instead of the million. If I ever made the show, I used to think that I would gamble my way up to try and see the $250K question, but now I think I would play more conservatively and walk away sooner than I would have before.

I would highly suggest reading a lot of current event news sites/NY Times,EW/People more than knowing the capital of Ukraine (when the capital questions do come up though, they are easy if you just memorized the list, but they seem more worried about writing interesting questions than just rote fact questions like Jeopardy! is more inclined to do). A lot of the higher questions for me are who gives a s### questions that you can't study for unless you want to read Wikipedia articles of famous people and what they did before they were famous, for instance, although I did know Merkel was a scientist before she was a politician for $100K, but since I am into politics I read a lot about certain leaders and their backgrounds...

Edit: I would also try and play trivia at pub quizzes. You are under more pressure to try and answer questions than just sitting watching a TV show, simulating a game show experience, plus it is fun. Plus, many of the quizzes focus on pop culture, which BAM likes to ask about a lot.

[MysteryMan-123]

Edit: I would also try and play trivia at pub quizzes. You are under more pressure to try and answer questions than just sitting watching a TV show, simulating a game show experience, plus it is fun. Plus, many of the quizzes focus on pop culture, which BAM likes to ask about a lot.

It's funny you mention that. I'm going to a pub quiz in an hour or two.

[AndyO92]

The Bored was probably my primary study tool. Worked through a bunch of transcripts and made notes the topics I missed. Key is to be honest with yourself when you don't know something; don't convince yourself you would have gotten the question if you backwards-reason your way to it after. Find the areas you're worst at, and use it to guide your way to an appropriate +1. Always have your ears open for hints in the lower-level questions; again, drilling at old transcripts gets you familiar with the language/setup.

My final study packet was broad, and likely impossible to master in the time between the happy phone call and any tape date. Presidents, past two years of TV/film/music awards, maps, supreme court justices, Shakespeare summaries, Wars, word roots... Was more shooting for familiarity so that I'd have a fighting chance if any of those came my way.

[tlynn78]

Skoop, I saw a t-shirt the other day and thought of you:

"Dorothy on the streets, Blanche in the sheets"

lol

To be clear, I'm referencing Skoop's appreciation of the Golden Girls, and Bea Arthur in particular, not any personal habits she may or may not have.

Hee-hee. I thought you meant Dorothy Gale and Blanche DuBois.

That works for a t-shirt, too!