Return-Path: owner-judge at synchro.com Received: from srvr7.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr7.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.69]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA00750 for ; Wed, 28 May 1997 08:39:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: from judgmentday.rs.itd.umich.edu (0 at judgmentday.rs.itd.umich.edu [141.211.83.37]) by srvr7.engin.umich.edu (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id IAA29099 for ; Wed, 28 May 1997 08:39:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: by judgmentday.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.8.5/2.2) with X.500 id IAA23289; Wed, 28 May 1997 08:39:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from uu6.psi.com by judgmentday.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.8.5/2.2) with SMTP id IAA23269; Wed, 28 May 1997 08:39:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA13699 for spencer at umich.edu; Wed, 28 May 97 08:39:28 -0400 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by synchro.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA04473 for judge-digest-outgoing; Wed, 28 May 1997 08:08:47 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 08:08:47 -0400 Message-Id: <199705281208.IAA04473 at synchro.com> From: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com To: judge-digest at synchro.com Subject: judge-digest V1 #1446 Reply-To: judge at synchro.com Errors-To: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com Precedence: bulk judge-digest Wednesday, 28 May 1997 Volume 01 : Number 1446 ============================================================================ J u d g e N e t - t h e b e e r j u d g e d i g e s t ============================================================================ Moderator: Chuck Cox Archivist: Spencer Thomas Publisher: SynchroSystems Submissions: judge at synchro.com Subscriptions: judge-request at synchro.com Archive: http://realbeer.com/spencer/judge BJCP info: geninfo at bjcp.synchro.com ============================================================================ contents: Re: The Relevance of the Exam two replies to george and one to kieran Re: Scoresheet evaluation, legibility any information on spirit of Belgium competition? Re: exam feedback ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Wilson Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 19:57:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: The Relevance of the Exam Why is there all this talk regarding the exam and its' supposed difficulty? If there is one thing the exam should be is DIFFICULT. If someone is trying to achieve a national or master rank and does not score high enough, they should look at their study techniques and the manner in which they communicate what they know--they should not gripe to JudgeNet saying the exam is too difficult or tests the "wrong information." Which brings me to my second point regading the post by Kieran O'Connor whose philosophy is fundamentally flawed. The reason we, as judges, have to know so much about brewing techinques is for the purpose of feedback. For example, say a premium lager beer is excessively estery, the proper feedback requires that we know possible sources for said flaw. This also holds true for flaws due to contamination. It is precisely this depth of knowledge that provides the foundation for a superior judge. It is absurd to propose that we need not have fundamental knowledge of the antecedent techniques of the very thing we are supposed to be judging. Period. Although I do believe that feedback to judges themselves is a good idea and should be pursued. I'll get off my soapbox now. John Wilson ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Bergsman Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 20:32:12 -0700 Subject: two replies to george and one to kieran "Kieran O'Connor" writes that the exam focuses too heavily on brewing rather than judging knowledge, to which I agree. He also suggests a new idea for accumulating and "certifying" experience. Might I suggest that we consider that any such plan is likely to be too difficult to implement and that we also consider what the purpose of experience points really is. Maybe dropping the whole judge rank thing is the best solution. ************** George_De_Piro at berlex.com (George De Piro) wonders about the new scoresheets. I'm on the scoresheet subcommittee. We are working hard, but we're not done yet. I'm not an official spokesperson, but I will give my take on where we are. We have discussed in general terms what we would all like to see on the new sheets. We have adopted an efficient means of decision making and are moving methodically through the issues that we have identified as being important to the new sheets. ***************** He also asks: > I have a question: what exactly is "wheat flavor?" I taste wheat as a kind of slightly harsh graininess. There is also a flavor that can be found in bland whole wheat breads. - -- Jeremy Bergsman jeremybb at leland.stanford.edu http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~jeremybb ------------------------------ From: Scott Bickham Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 09:18:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Scoresheet evaluation, legibility Kieran proposes: > Have competition organizers randomly photocopy a score sheet from each > judge for the day and send it on to the BJCP to create a judging protfolio. > When a recognized judge has judged 5 competitions, his or her five points > *and* five "certified" level score sheets would be his or her ticket to > certified status. So we'd be asking judges to show us that they've > progressed to the next level with evidence, rather than attendance. On what basis would you evaluate the scoresheet? You have no information about the beer except for the judges scores and comments. For all you know, the judge could have scored Westmalle Tripel a 24 and misidentified any number of flaws. But as long as he bullshits his way through the scoresheet, you would allow him to be a Master judge? At least in the current exam format, there are on average 10 other scoresheets from proctors and other examinees from which to determine whether the judge is at least in the right ballpark. > I appreciate that this involves extra work: competition organizers copying > a score sheet (I've run 320 entry comps), storage of these portfolios (who, > where how?), evaluation of the portfolios (subjective yes, but so is the > exam, and I think it's fairly graded). It's pretty easy to recommend more labor intensive procedures when you are not the one doing the work. There are many excellent BJCP exam scorers, but few who are willing to complete the Report to Participant forms on a regular basis because it's very time-consuming. It's also a double-edged sword - the more details we give about point deductions, the more we open ourselves up to debate, since many aspects of brewing and beer styles are not exact science. Jeremy Bergsman > The scoring of the four beers is split evenly between perception, > > descriptive ability, feedback and communication (readability and > > completeness). > > This makes it sound like readability and completeness account > for 1/3 of 80% of the tasting portion. (I'm assume feedback and > communication is one item.) This works out to 8% of the total > score. Nope, the last comma in a list is optional, so completeness and readabililty account for 20% of the tasting score, with an emphasis on completeness. Even the feedback forms no longer mention readability. How do you get 8% anyway? 1/3*80%*30%=7.2%, though the actual figure is 1/4*80%*30%=6%, and considering how many complaints you read about incomplete scoresheets, giving this much weight to completeness is reasonable. It sounds like Kieran would like to increase this to he majority of one's score, but I feel that perception, descriptive ability, feedback and scoring accuracy are also important. Scott ======================================================================== Naval Research Laboratory, Code 6691 E-mail: bickham at dave.nrl.navy.mil Complex Systems Theory Branch Home or BJCP: 7507 Swan Point Way Washington, DC 20375 Columbia, MD 21045 (202) 404-8632 FAX: (202) 404-7546 (410) 290-7721 BJCP Web Page: http://www.bjcp.org ========================================================================= ------------------------------ From: "Jay Hersh aka Dr. Beer (SM)" Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 13:01:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: any information on spirit of Belgium competition? Is this competition going to happen in 97? I heard some rumors it was being moved to the fall. Anyone have any information on date and/or location for it this year. Thanks a lot, Jay - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalt's This is a key free document, no keyboards were harmed in its creation. (The DragonDictate speech recognition system, the CIC handwriting recognizer, or some combination was used.) ------------------------------ From: jdecarlo at mail04.mitre.org (John A. DeCarlo) Date: Tue, 27 May 97 08:18:22 -0400 Subject: Re: exam feedback Spencer W Thomas wrote: >Jeremy wrote: >> Many people taking the exam are judging out beers with a score >> sheet for the first time, or nearly so. >This is a scary statement, to me. I certainly wouldn't want to have >taken the exam without having had significant practice in scoring >beers before hand. So, how did you get all your experience? There definitely seems to be an emphasis on having BJCP judges at competitions, rather than others. Sort of a Catch-22: how can you be a good judge (and do well on the judging part of the exam) without actual experience judging, yet how can you get experience without having passed the exam? John DeCarlo, jdecarlo at juno.com ------------------------------ End of judge-digest V1 #1446 **************************** Send subscription cancellations & changes to judge-request at synchro.com. Messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored.