I've always averred that Classicists are probably the best equipped folks for Jeopardy (based on the pool of knowledge on the Classics list) and here's some potential proof from the New York Times:

Maria Wenglinsky taught her French poodle to obey commands in one of her favorite languages, Latin.

She studied the classics at Columbia University, and wrote her 300-page doctoral dissertation on an ancient poet, calling it, she said, "The representation of the divine in Quintus of Smyrna or something like that, something very pedestrian." She has a map of Rome on her dining room wall, next to a bookshelf stocked with volumes like "History of the Byzantine State" and other titles that only a woman whose pet understands the meaning of "iace" (lie down) could enjoy.

But Mrs. Wenglinsky found that her smarts got her only so far in her sweep on the game show "Jeopardy!" She also had to rely on more unlikely sources: The students at St. Saviour High School in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Mrs. Wenglinsky, who teaches Latin and European history at St. Saviour, an all-girls Catholic school, said her students' knowledge of pop culture had helped her succeed in some of the more modern categories. She credited a recent graduate's obsession with the cult television series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" for supplying her with one answer, stated in the form of a question, naturally.

The strategy paid off. Last week, Mrs. Wenglinsky, 36, made five appearances on "Jeopardy!", answering head-scratchers about one of the languages of Afghanistan (What is Pushtu?), the capital of Montezuma (What is Tenochtitlan?) and the reshaper of 17th century London (Who is Christopher Wren?).

In the meantime, she has earned about $122,000 since her first appearance on Monday and has become something of a celebrity among the school's 340 students, their parents, the administrators and the faculty. The shows were recorded over the summer in Los Angeles.

Students have huddled around the television with their families, gasping and clapping, a pleasant distraction for many who had the prospect of yesterday's SAT exam to look forward to all week. "Every single person in the school is rooting for her," said Sister Valeria Belanger, the principal.

Mrs. Wenglinsky does not consider herself a quiz show star. With close-cropped hair and black-frame glasses, she politely scoffs at the word that people keeping throwing around: genius.

"It's just a knack for being able to pull things out is all it is," she said. She said she did not know her I.Q., and described her recent victories as simply the result of a talent for being able to recall random bits of information. Some people might spend days or weeks cramming for an appearance on "Jeopardy!" She said she flipped through an old copy of The World Almanac on the plane to Los Angeles, a Christmas gift from her Aunt Alice.

As her friends, family and students followed her on television last week, they were naturally curious about how it all turned out. Not even the principal knows.

"If I say how it turns out, I'll lose my prize money," Mrs. Wenglinsky explained.

On Friday night, the program ended with a cliffhanger. Mrs. Wenglinsky won again, but will not appear again until the end of the month, when the regular show resumes after two weeks. She invited four fellow teachers to her home in Bay Ridge to watch the program, and even as they cheered, laughed with and teased Mrs. Wenglinsky, she gave no clues about what happened next.

She sat quietly on a chair, her 2-year-old son, Martin James, on her lap. Delia, her bilingual poodle, missed out on the festivities and was confined to a room upstairs because, it turns out, following commands in any language is not Delia's thing. Mrs. Wenglinsky said her six-figure winnings thus far - one teacher said it was about three or four times the annual salary at St. Saviour - are in a sense already spent. It will go to her mortgage, she said.

The quiz show champion says she was really just a regular, boring person. She is from Salt Lake City, and, other than occasional knitting and gardening, said most of her free time is spent on the playground with Martin James. Her husband, Harold, is an educational policy analyst.

As her television self posed questions-as-answers to the show's host, Alex Trebek, about precious metals, the real Mrs. Wenglinsky sat in her living room and posed one more question, this one a no-brainer.

"You want some more chips?" she asked her son.