From synchro!judge-request at uu6.psi.com Tue May 17 07:18:44 1994 Received: from uu6.psi.com by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA04787 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Tue, 17 May 94 07:18:39 -0400 Received: from synchro.UUCP by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA09424 for ; Tue, 17 May 94 06:39:17 -0400 Received: by synchro.com (smail2.5) id AA04849; 17 May 94 05:23:17 EDT (Tue) Reply-To: judge at synchro.com (JudgeNet) Errors-To: judge-error at synchro.com Precedence: bulk Message-Id: <9405170523.AA04849 at synchro.com> From: judge-request at synchro.com (JudgeNet Administrator) To: judge-recipients at synchro.com (JudgeNet Recipients) Subject: JudgeNet Digest #762 (May 17, 1994) Date: 17 May 94 05:23:17 EDT (Tue) JudgeNet Digest #762 Tue 17 May 1994 THE BEER JUDGE DIGEST Chuck Cox , publisher Michael Hall , archive administrator digest submissions to judge at synchro.com administrative requests to judge-request at synchro.com send rank updates to the administrative address messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored FTP archive information in /pub/judge/README on cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov Published by SynchroSystems and the Riverside Garage & Brewery Contents: top down / exam (Ed Hitchcock) Re: Top down vs. bottom up (Bill Slack) Open ended questions (Jim Liddil) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 10:40:56 -0300 From: Ed Hitchcock Subject: top down / exam Rick Garvin wrote: >For me, the top down approach leads to faster, more accurate judging >that, when it is over, allows the consensus to build quickly and with >few disputes. I agree. One should, with some practice and experience, be able to taste a homebrew and score it within 10% or so before jotting anything down on paper. Subsequent beers then get marked compared to earlier samples, the earlier samples can also be adjusted slightly up or down to allow for later beers to be scored slightly lower or higher. It is quick, and I also believe it to be a little more acurate. If one simply adds all the component scores, a bland but inoffensive beer can get quite a high score. *** *** *** BeeRich wrote: >About exam results. The recognition is based on an exam (which is worth 70% >from what I hear) and the rest (30%) is based on a tasting. The >combination of these two gives a total out of 100%. So far so good. If I >get 85%, but have no points, I am recognized. If I earn points past 20, >must I take this examination over again to get National status? If you get 85% on the exam, you don't need to take it again until you have enough points to try for Master Judge level. Master Judge is 40 pts and 90% on the exam. >About measurements. I find it a bit strange that when the brewing world is >based on Metric, that a judging group would make all of its calculations in >Imperial. Can people take the exam in Metric, or will people not get the >marks? I wrote the technical parts of the exam in metric. No problem there. >About events. How does one get invited to participate as a judge at an event? >Let's say I want to get down in to the States (I'm Canadian) for an event. >Does somebody ask me, or would I have to poke my nose in? Do more experienced >judges hog the good events? Big events are usually posted, to Judgenet, for example, or Zymurgy, or various other beer newsletters. For the AHA Nationals they send out little cards to all registered judges alerting them who to contact if they want to participate and so on. Where in CAN are you from? Here in NS it's a *LONG* way to go to any US competitions, I have to settle for the CABA events, where I can stay with family in TO and MTL. >Cheers. Facing brewing exams of my own. :-) Good luck. ____________ Ed Hitchcock ech at ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron: Draft beer in bottles. | Anatomy & Neurobiology | Pleonasm: Draft beer on tap. | Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________| ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 May 94 08:42:59 EDT From: wslack!wrs (Bill Slack) Subject: Re: Top down vs. bottom up Rick Garvin asked about top down judging -- Clearly, beer judging is part art and part science, part right brain and part left brain, part subjective and part objective. IMHO, top down emphasizes the artistic, right brain, subjective aspects of judging and bottom up is more analytical, left brain and objective. I judge by evaluating and assigning scores to each attribute (nose, appearance, flavor, etc.) as I go, then totaling the scores and asking myself if I think that was indeed a 29 beer as opposed to a 30 beer, and adjusting if I think it necessary and discussing it with my judge partner before deciding on the final score. I guess this is typical bottom up judging. A friend of mine from a neighboring state judged with me recently and his method was to evaluate and write up each attribute but not score it, then right down his subjective numerical score for the beer and pick the individual attribute scores to fit. Classic top down approach. At first, his approach appalled me but we always ended up with fairly consistent scores, both by attribute and by total. So, in my experience, it doesn't seem to matter which method you use. Left brain people will tend to use bottom up and right brain people will tend to use top down. The important thing is that beers be judged consistently and brewers get feedback on their beer. I think the method is up to the judge's individual preference. FWIW, I tend to evaluate the beer and be ready to discuss it with the other judges somewhat faster than average. But this probably due to my Type A personality, not my judging methodology. Bill __ wrs at gozer.mv.com (Bill Slack) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 7:57:34 -0700 (MST) From: Jim Liddil Subject: Open ended questions % Spencer Thomas wrote: % % The fellow (Bill Pfeiffer) who proctored my exam helped design the % BJCP program (or so he says). He said that while they are interested % in the demonstration of specific knowledge, they also want to gauge % the depth of understanding and comprehension. % % The following comments are my own: % % The ONLY to get any indication of this (in my experience as % a teacher) is to give open-ended questions. If you're really "master % judge quality", you should be able to answer the questions briefly (a % page or two) but completely, and in such a way as makes clear that you % could have written quite a bit more on each. Open ended questions are fine to test ones ability to describe a subject completely. The problem I see with using these questions exclusively is that the questions can not be graded in a totally objective manner. Also the exam takers do not get their exams back, only a comment sheet. If I feel my exam has been graded in a less than fair and complete manner how do I go about doing this? If I ever had questions about how an exam was graded in college I could go to the prof. with my exam and discuss why or why not I think I was not given full credit. For $50 I think I should be given this privelage. I favor a more objectively gradable exam. Jim ------------------------------ End of JudgeNet Digest ************************