Tasting

After passing the online exam, prospective judges must then take the Judging (Tasting) exam of six beers. Five aspects of Scoring, Perception, Descriptive Ability, Feedback, and Completeness are graded against the Proctor’s score sheets and the Administrator’s notes about the beers.  Importantly, approximately 69% of one’s Exam score is not based on comparing your work to the Proctors’ sheets.  Your Descriptions, Feedback and Completeness have nothing to do with what the Proctors said, and your Scoring results have a maximum deduction of eleven, meaning everyone gets at least nine of the 20 points on Scoring Accuracy.  So, focus on what you alone control, and do your best on the rest. Emphasize Completeness, since doing so will drive you to write fuller Descriptions and double-check that you’ve given accurate Feedback on every issue, both Technical/Brewing, and Style.  Whatever shortcomings you mention above should be addressed with a fix for the next brew.