‘Jeopardy!’ shot alive for Phila. teacher

What a week for questions and answers for Philadelphia English teacher Elisabeth Raab.

Wednesday night, thanks in part to a Pennsylvania question, she's hanging on in Jeopardy!'s first-ever Teachers Tournament.

On Saturday, at Tyler Aboretum, Raab expects to answer, "I do," and marry Jason Yucis, a federal grant officer.

On Wednesday's syndicated show, Raab, 31, a Penn State grad who got her master's at Rutgers-Camden, correctly "asked" about pollination, the film Up, McDonald's, Hannibal Lecter, cider, bacteria, an arch's keystone, EMT, yap, Yiddish, YouTube and Yemen, and was leading going into the Double Jeopardy round.

The Bethlehem-raised Raab also got lucky when host Alex Trebek interviewed her about teaching at the Microsoft-backed School of the Future, instead of bringing up some personal embarrassment as he prefers to do.

He asked Lori Kissell of Virginia about her car getting smashed by a pickup truck.

Raab's opponents seemed to improve at buzzing in during Double Jeopardy, and Raab trailed going into Final Jeopardy.

They all rightly responded about the Gettysburg Address, and Raab, who bet $4,000, earned $16,400.

Although she finished third, that left her in the running for the last of four wild-card spots.

Ahead of her are Dan Crosby of California and John Shoe of Colorado, contestants on Monday's show (preempted on 6ABC in Philadelphia for a news special about the killing of Osama bin Ladin), as well as Matt Polazzo of Brooklyn, who finished second last night.

Risking more could have put Raab higher on the list. A bet of $8,601 would have put her into the top wild card position, if the stats are right at j-archive.com.

But contestants were sequestered, and she had no idea what happened on other shows, she said. Besides, she was leery of the category, "Historic speeches."

Kissel and the other winners of this week's five shows also advance to the three semifinal matchups next week, whose victors will compete May 12 and 13 for a $100,000 top prize.

Although Raab is sworn to secrecy about whether she'll advance, she said the whole experience was a thrill, from competing to Wednesday's classroom visit by Jimmy of the show's Clue Crew, followed by an evening viewing party.

"It was fun," she said. ". . . Everything was a blast."

To see the full A&Q (not Q&A, given the show's reverse format), go to www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3637.