Today I opened an e-mail with the results from an tasting exam I sat for after the NHC. It seemed to have gone well, even though 2 weeks in CA and the NHC put some pressure on the study time. My goal was to score at least 80.
The good news was that I scored 85. That made me very satisfied, my first tasting score on the legacy exam was 67. So I learned between exams, and the allergies were not acting up.
Now I need to retake the written, which will be the 2015 guidelines. That is the bad news, as there will be much study required for this old guy.
Congrats Jeff! I’m in a similar boat in that I’m starting to prep for the written (I have taken it once, but was horribly under-prepared, so I seriously doubt I’ll score anywhere near my target) under the 2015 guidelines. A new study guide had not been released last I checked, but I doubt the new guidelines will have changed it that much. Many of the new styles typically aren’t included in exams (e.g. Gose, American Wild, etc.), so the compare/contrast questions probably won’t change in spirit. The classic examples are in many respects going to be simpler since there are fewer of them. I’m of the mind, after actually giving it a go, that my biggest hurdle is going to be organization and efficiency of transferring information since it’s hand-written. I know by the time I got to the last couple questions my answers were barely skimming the surface of what I could have put down. So, now to find a site.
Written exams are MUCH easier to schedule now that we have the “Quarterly Written” exams.
Once each quarter, the BJCP has a single date/time set up for a single written exam that can span across multiple cities in multiple time zones. Any BJCP exam grader can request to administer a site and join one of these with only a couple of months notice, even for a single examinee. There is no maximum. The only rules are:
Examinees must pre-qualify to take the exam = 80+ tasting score AND have 10+ judging experience points.
You must commit and have registered (paid your admin) at least 30 days ahead of the exam date. No exceptions. So, for a November 21 exam, you must have paid your admin and (s)he must have paid for your slot with the exam directors before Oct 21.
If you bail, you lose your exam fee.
The date and time is non-negotiable. The same exam will be given at every site simultaneously so that the various sites can be pooled and graded together. Holding them at the same time eliminates the possibility of questions getting out, etc and maximizes the use of the grading teams.
So, all you need to do is look at the schedule, find a quarterly written date, (next one is March 12, 2016) that is suitable for you. If there’s a site near you, you can call the admin and join in, If not, just get one of the graders on the list who is near you to volunteer to administer the exam, pay the admin the $25 fee at least 30 days before the exam, and you have your seat.
I’m happy to administer a quarterly written exam here in Western WA any time they are held, just let me know at least 8 weeks ahead of the exam.
While I certainly agree with your premise that it’s easier to get an exam scheduled with the quarterly, that doesn’t make it easy for people (like myself) where the closest grader is 5+ hours away. That’s certainly the route I’m going to have to take though once I get myself prepped to the level that I want to be. The bonus for others is that it will definitely help the people near me when I do clear that hurdle.
There are at least two of us working on it. It would effectively double the National judges in the state (and the other two guys don’t grade and are unlikely to start).
All you need is an active judge to administer. The graders list is auto-approved, but the ED’s will approve a non-grader in situations like yours. They just have to get permission ahead of time.
Congrats, Jeff. Your knowledgeable comments on this board bear witness to your experience, as well as your understanding of the beer world.
Not sure if I will sit for the written exam next year or not. I just barely passed the minimum score on the tasting exam (81 - which I was ecstatic to get, by the way) and I need more experience points anyway… then take a good while to crack the books to try to get the National level - at least another year in total. My tasting score reflects my inexperience - my descriptive ability was generally master level, but my scoring sucked - novice at times. With more judging under my belt, I hope to be better prepared all around and then allow the new style guidelines to sink in a bit and work on practice exams and handwriting things (who does much of that anymore?). It sounds pretty universal that the problem with taking the written exam is getting all that you have to say spit out in the short times allotted. I got D’s in penmanship in grade school and I can’t hardly decipher what I wrote five minutes after I wrote it…
Anyway, I have a lot of respect for those National and above - clearly a lot of time was put in to get those scores.
