Subject: Digest for the period 1/17/2004 - 1/18/2004 Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 01:03:14 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 10th Annual Boston Homebrew Competition (Francois Espourteille) 2. Re: Digest for the period 1/16/2004 - 1/17/2004 (Scott Bickham) 3. Re: BJCP exam heresy (Steve Casselman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Francois Espourteille Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:52:42 -0500 Subject: 10th Annual Boston Homebrew Competition Announcing the 10th Annual Boston Homebrew Competition, presented by the Boston Wort Processors. The entry deadline is approaching fast (Jan. 23), but there is still time to enter your best brew. BHC is both an MCAB qualifier and part of the NEHBOTY cup. Surf to http://www.wort.org/BHC/bhc.html for more details. Please consider joining us to judge the event. The judge pool is always of the highest caliber. To register for judging please send an email to francois53`at`comcast.net Cheers, Francois Espourteille Head Judge ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Bickham Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:48:42 -0500 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 1/16/2004 - 1/17/2004 Mark Wilson wrote: > Well, this gets at one of MY pet peeves about the exam. There is no > "grader's guide" availible, so exam-takers don't know how close you > need to be, and what exactly points are being taken off for. Am I > penalized for being off spec by 1 point? 3? 5? Since threshold, for > example, for IBU perception is about 5 IBUs, I hope not. Not to > mention the fact that many BJCP classic examples do not meet the style > parameters (e.g. Old Peculiar). Should one concentrate on memorizing > these sort of details, or more history, geography, etc. in order to > improve their score? Mark, you are not a grader, so I do not see how you can make these unfounded statements. Thumbnail answers to the exam questions have existied for a number of years and are periodically updated, most recently by John Curtis. These are distributed to new graders. While there are myriad ways to present the combination of flavor, technical and background information, the key provides *some* of the common elements that graders should look for. However there is not a template for a given score, since there are too many possibilities and we encourage the graders' individualities. > It would be really great if it were possible to return the exams with > grader comments, so one could improve for next time. I fully > understand WHY this is not the case (nobody would grade exams, lest > they be constantly barraged by whining exams takers), but the amount > of feedback you currently get is very low. More examples of correct > answers would also be helpful. While there is some variability in the level of feedback between exam sets, most examinees are now given 1.5 - 2 pages of comments in 10 point font. This adds a lot of time to the grading process, but most of the graders take this as an opportunity to teach and train new judges. We've reached the point where there is enough information that it's not difficult to pick out controversial statements or minor points to complain about. For example, the feedback could include numerous helpful and accurate comments, but an examinee could focus on a minor comment that "numercial ranges for IBU and OG would demonstrate depth," and then use this to publicly criticize the exam process. But of course that would never happen, would it? Yeah, right. Cheers, Scott ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Casselman Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:41:37 -0800 Subject: Re: BJCP exam heresy Here is a little more Heresy.. I have always thought that the BJCP exam tried be all things to all judges. By that I mean that one test has to test everyone from a novice to a master. A small spread of points seperates someone who barely knows anything to someone who knows everything. I have tried to run this by people before but I think there should be 2 tests. One for reconized/ceritified (level 1) and one for national/master(level 2). The level 1 test could be much simpler to take and to score. It could be a 2 hour test with multiple choice questions 1 essey and 2 beer evals. The level 2 test could be 4 hours and be very much like the test we have now. This would save time for the scorers and the test takers. The people scoring the test would have more of a range. A 80% on the hard test could get you to Master while 80% on the easy test would get you ceritified. There would be less of the hard tests to score and scorers could spend more time on these tests. If there are ten questions now you can only miss one point per question. And who can't find something to take one point off on a question? In the end it becomes a question of whether or not your scorer is having a good day or not. Last time I took the test the scoring was very hard. The first scorer baled out and there was pressure on the second scorer to get things done quickly. If 3/4 of the tests were a level 1 test there would not have been as much pressure on the scorer. Steve ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** Subject: Digest for the period 1/17/2004 - 1/18/2004 Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 01:03:14 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 10th Annual Boston Homebrew Competition (Francois Espourteille) 2. Re: Digest for the period 1/16/2004 - 1/17/2004 (Scott Bickham) 3. Re: BJCP exam heresy (Steve Casselman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Francois Espourteille Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:52:42 -0500 Subject: 10th Annual Boston Homebrew Competition Announcing the 10th Annual Boston Homebrew Competition, presented by the Boston Wort Processors. The entry deadline is approaching fast (Jan. 23), but there is still time to enter your best brew. BHC is both an MCAB qualifier and part of the NEHBOTY cup. Surf to http://www.wort.org/BHC/bhc.html for more details. Please consider joining us to judge the event. The judge pool is always of the highest caliber. To register for judging please send an email to francois53`at`comcast.net Cheers, Francois Espourteille Head Judge ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Bickham Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:48:42 -0500 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 1/16/2004 - 1/17/2004 Mark Wilson wrote: > Well, this gets at one of MY pet peeves about the exam. There is no > "grader's guide" availible, so exam-takers don't know how close you > need to be, and what exactly points are being taken off for. Am I > penalized for being off spec by 1 point? 3? 5? Since threshold, for > example, for IBU perception is about 5 IBUs, I hope not. Not to > mention the fact that many BJCP classic examples do not meet the style > parameters (e.g. Old Peculiar). Should one concentrate on memorizing > these sort of details, or more history, geography, etc. in order to > improve their score? Mark, you are not a grader, so I do not see how you can make these unfounded statements. Thumbnail answers to the exam questions have existied for a number of years and are periodically updated, most recently by John Curtis. These are distributed to new graders. While there are myriad ways to present the combination of flavor, technical and background information, the key provides *some* of the common elements that graders should look for. However there is not a template for a given score, since there are too many possibilities and we encourage the graders' individualities. > It would be really great if it were possible to return the exams with > grader comments, so one could improve for next time. I fully > understand WHY this is not the case (nobody would grade exams, lest > they be constantly barraged by whining exams takers), but the amount > of feedback you currently get is very low. More examples of correct > answers would also be helpful. While there is some variability in the level of feedback between exam sets, most examinees are now given 1.5 - 2 pages of comments in 10 point font. This adds a lot of time to the grading process, but most of the graders take this as an opportunity to teach and train new judges. We've reached the point where there is enough information that it's not difficult to pick out controversial statements or minor points to complain about. For example, the feedback could include numerous helpful and accurate comments, but an examinee could focus on a minor comment that "numercial ranges for IBU and OG would demonstrate depth," and then use this to publicly criticize the exam process. But of course that would never happen, would it? Yeah, right. Cheers, Scott ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Casselman Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:41:37 -0800 Subject: Re: BJCP exam heresy Here is a little more Heresy.. I have always thought that the BJCP exam tried be all things to all judges. By that I mean that one test has to test everyone from a novice to a master. A small spread of points seperates someone who barely knows anything to someone who knows everything. I have tried to run this by people before but I think there should be 2 tests. One for reconized/ceritified (level 1) and one for national/master(level 2). The level 1 test could be much simpler to take and to score. It could be a 2 hour test with multiple choice questions 1 essey and 2 beer evals. The level 2 test could be 4 hours and be very much like the test we have now. This would save time for the scorers and the test takers. The people scoring the test would have more of a range. A 80% on the hard test could get you to Master while 80% on the easy test would get you ceritified. There would be less of the hard tests to score and scorers could spend more time on these tests. If there are ten questions now you can only miss one point per question. And who can't find something to take one point off on a question? In the end it becomes a question of whether or not your scorer is having a good day or not. Last time I took the test the scoring was very hard. The first scorer baled out and there was pressure on the second scorer to get things done quickly. If 3/4 of the tests were a level 1 test there would not have been as much pressure on the scorer. Steve ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * **********************************************************************