The 10-year-old student at Upper Elementary School will be seen Sept. 26 on a special edition of Jeopardy!
By: Nick D’Amore
The answer is: What is South Brunswick?
And the question is: Sara Jansen, soon to be seen as a contestant on Back-To-School Jeopardy! is from this town.
Sara, a 10-year-old student at Upper Elementary School, will be seen Sept. 26 on a special edition of Jeopardy! for kids age 10-13.
In July, Sara’s mother, Eileen, found a Web site for the show and entered Sara to be a contestant.
Sara soon found herself in New York City for an audition to be seen on the show. The show is hosted by Alex Trebek and seen locally on ABC-TV, Channel 7 at 7 p.m.
"I had to take a 50-question test and only those who passed stayed and got to play a mock version of the game," she said.
Sara said she did "pretty well" at the tryouts, answering questions about geography, science and other areas of knowledge.
Asked if the questions were hard during the tryouts, Sara said, "Not really."
In August, Sara went to California, where the show is taped, to record her show.
The Back-To-School version of the game show will air all next week.
Sara said she got most of her questions right, coming in second place. She said she was up against two other very smart kids, both of whom were 12 years old. She said she was not nervous during the taping.
She also got to meet and talk with Mr. Trebek.
As a second-place finisher, Sara received a new computer and a trip to Universal Studios in California, a trip she hasn’t taken yet.
Sara also is a regular viewer of the game show, where she said she gets "a lot of the questions right."
"It was a good experience," said Sara of her half-hour of fame that will be broadcast nationally.
According to a press release from Jeopardy!, this is the 18th year the show has aired a Back-To-School version featuring youngsters.
Each day of shows features three contestants. The winner of each show keeps the money he or she wins, with a minimum guarantee of $5,000.
The other two contestants receive a $1,000 shopping spree at the HSN.com, the Web site for the Home Shopping Network.
As an added bonus, the person with the highest earnings at the end of the week gets an additional $5,000. All players get a trip for four to Universal Studios, Hollywood.

