If you are taking the exam this weekend, you really don’t have time to do anything other than cram and use your current knowledge.
Amanda gave great advice, and I can’t stress how important it is to practice the answers ahead of time. Getting a mentor like David also helps a lot if you have more time to study and work with them (David is awesome!) You need to have an idea of what you want to write for each question and how long it takes you to write them. Time management was the problem I saw/heard most from other exam takers. Writing a 7 page novel for one question will not get you extra credit and you’ll not have enough time to answer the other questions adequately.
While the exam guide for dummies is an OK resource, it was really written to get people into the 70s in the old exam format IMO. With the new written only exam with more time for each question, I’ve heard the graders expect a little more from your answers than regurgitating what is in a study guide. They are also very familiar with seeing answers copied from the for dummies guide and might not be too willing to score those answers too highly.
If you are aiming for a score in the 80s/90s, I would recommend using all the resources out there to create your own study guide. Create an outline for what you want to write for each question and then practice writing them out. The graders can be impressed with original answers that show independent thought. Not sure you have much time for this type of study though with under a week until your exam.
Also, make sure you actually answer what is being asked of you. Look at the % breakouts for each question and use that as a guide. Don’t spend more time on part of a question that is only with 10% of that question when you could be adding more to a part of that answer worth 30%. Don’t loose silly points. Know your commercial examples and know the TF questions.
Finally, from what I have gathered, the usual question breakout for the written is: 2 style comparison questions, 1 recipe question, 2 technical questions. Some of it is also luck on what questions you draw. Getting the water question can take a lot of your time to answer well, as can some more complicated styles like stouts.
Hope that helps. Good luck! Let us know how you think you did.
very good advice here from dsmitch19. I hope everyone studying reads it.
as said previously, “…for Dummies” helps you pass. It can help with your organization and with answering all aspects of the question. but without going beyond what Al says you won’t get a great score.
I grade these things, and see people spent maybe up to 70% of a full page writing A/A/F/M for “three styles” questions, and then barely say anything in the distinguishing characteristics section. The former is 40%, the latter 25% - use your time wisely. Along with a classic example, everyone should be able to come up with a unique and meaningful sentence describing every substyle from the Overall Impression, History, Comments, and Ingredients sections of the Style Guidelines. And no, saying BoPils was created in 1842 is not enough.
On a similar note, don’t expect a lot of help from your grader if the only thing you wrote for “similarities” between Munich Helles, Octoberfest, and Vienna was that they were “all German lagers.”
(however, noting they are all lagers as a similarity and the two different countries of origin as a difference would get you some credit. but give me more! - It’s 25% and you can get it quickly!)
Thanks for the tips guys. I’m pretty confident on my knowledge… Just more worried about time management and specifically the recipe formulation stuff since I don’t hand calculate anything in ‘real life’ I just use BeerSmith for all that lol. udubdawg gave me some good advice that I’m going to follow through on after work tonight. Keep the tips and tidbits coming. I am your sponge lol.
Quick tip…at 75% efficiency, you can plan on 5 GU from each lb. of grain in a 5 gal. batch. I used to know a trick like that for hops, too, but it’s slipped away…
Agreed. Independent thought, not regurgitating the guidelines or study guides, not contradicting yourself and showing depth of knowledge will get you an excellent score in my book (another grader here). I referenced the Dummies pdf because it has all of the questions in it. Teckam made sure that I knew everything outside of the usual study guide information that I could and my exam score reflected that.
90+ isn’t the goal for everyone though, for some people good enough is just good enough. And that’s just fine too.
Be sure to answer each part of every question to maximize your score. For the style sections describing the AAFM of the three styles earns you a maximum of 40% for the question, 25% is identifying and aspect of the ingredients or style, 10% is the three classic commercial examples, 25% is the similarities and differences of the styles.
So what I see many people do is spend an enormous amount of time on the AAFM, write incorrect classic examples, skip the aspect, and briefly describe sim/diff. At best one would earn a 60 for such a response. Pay attention to each part.
For the recipe:
Stats for the recipe - 10% (make those stats meet your recipe)
Batch size, etc - 20%
Mash, boil, etc. - 35%
How recipe meets style (suggest to discuss AAFM in depth) - 35%
What I see people do here is write recipes which would not even make the style queried or the stats they state are impossible. Then things like fermenting a lager at 70F.
The last two questions vary, but pay attention to what is asked and the response percentage values. Put SOMETHING close to correct in every area. You cannot earn partial credit if you did not answer the question.
Time management is key. There are 20 T/F which can only count against you and 5 questions in 90 min. Let’s say you do the T/F in 5 min (15 seconds per T/F), then you have 17 minutes for each of the 5 questions.
Well I took the written exam yesterday… Wish I had more knowledge based questions vs “memorize this” questions that involved just writing down style guidelines from memory. I spent far too much time writting style guidelines and neglected parts of the recipe question etc… I don’t know if I got the 75 I needed or not… Probably somewhere right around there if I were to hazard a guess… Could go either way.
Fingers are still a bit sore from writing. The 90 minute time limit on the exam is definiantly the hardest part of the exam. I didn’t get ‘stumped’ by the questions. It was just a “OMG I don’t have time to answer” scenario. I realize it can be answered in that time limit… Perhaps I just write slow or I wasn’t rehearsed enough in writing out my answers. I don’t recall sitting there not writting very much. It was pretty much non-stop writing for 90 minutes. At any rate my recommendation would be to practice the style questions as they took up all my clock. (write out aroma, appearance, flavor, and mouthfeel for 3 styles. Identify ingredients or history for each of them. Name at least 1 classic example of each. List similarities between the 3 styles and differences between the 3 styles.) I had 2 of those and they were what I spent too much time on so I would practice writing those out as fast as possible… perhaps time yourself?
Yeah I agree with that. Part of the issue was my own biff. I knew there would be 2 style questions. I just didn’t realize there was only a single type of style question I guess. I should have but for some reason I had it in my head that there was another type and I wouldn’t get 2 of those… Yeah I’m an idiot lol.
There is a list of 86 3-way pairings you could possibly get in the style guidelines. I think it’s suppose to be random from those… Not sure how they do ‘random’ though
The queried styles are in the Study Guide and as was stated there are 86 combinations. One could count the total number styles if they were so inclined.
90 minutes sounds great, last time I took the written it was the legacy exam with 10 questions and 4 beers to judge in 3 hours. The only time I stopped writing was when I got up to go to the restroom.
Congrats on taking the exam, just getting to that point is a major accomplishment!
Congrats on taking it! I wish you a speedy exam grading process. I’m anxiously awaiting my written score from Nov.
Time management is difficult and people underestimate the need to practice it. 15-17 minutes seems like a long time but it really isn’t for complex questions. The first time I practiced writing an answer, I only got about half of what I wanted to say written out. It was then a process of figuring out what info from my study guide I could leave out and what I thought would help improve my score. I learned that I can write about 1.5-2 full pages of text in about 15 minutes, so that helped guide my answer planning.
Mind sharing what your technical questions were? I’m always curious to hear what questions people got. If you read the study guide, you’ll see that there is only the one possible style question. There used to be more, but they took it down to the one basic compare/contrast question during the last exam revision.
