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Old Mon Oct 25, 2021, 12:49pm
BillyMac BillyMac is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Connecticut
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Educational Experience ...

We did away with the NFHS exam several years ago. I'll be taking the IAABO open-book Refresher Exam. 75 rules questions (based on NFHS rules and interpretations), I believe to be generated by IAABO International, and 25 IAABO mechanics questions, I believe to be state, or locally, generated.

Haven't looked at it yet, just got it a few days ago. The past few years the IAABO questions have been much better than in the past, less wordy, less likely to be "gotcha" questions.

My local board has set up several Refresher Exam "study groups", both "live", and Zoom, giving us a chance to work on the exam together in small groups. Makes it more of a educational experience than an evaluation experience.

A passing score is (only) 80 correct answers out of 100 questions is required. One can take the exam three times (online, used to be two times) to get a passing grade, thus allowing one to get assignments for this coming season. Even after failing three times, one can still get assignments by attending a "remedial" meeting.

We're all about education, not evaluation. But I think that the pendulum has swung too far to one side. I bump into colleagues every year that don't seem to know if the basketball is stuffed, or inflated.

Over forty years of exams, NFHS and IAABO, I never got perfect scores on my own, only submitted perfect scores after attending small group meetings, either "approved" by my local board (as we do now), or "unapproved" (as in the past, often with a leader with a "black market" answer sheet) in clandestine smoke filled back rooms. Usual reasons I got questions wrong isn't because I didn't know the rule, it's because I didn't read the questions carefully enough, or the ambiguous questions were poorly written. Also have problems with "unannounced" IAABO mechanics changes.

Still, every year my goal is to achieve a perfect score.

Just like my goal every game is to officiate a perfect game. Of course, that's never happened either, probably never will. But I keep trying, I'm very goal oriented.
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Last edited by BillyMac; Mon Oct 25, 2021 at 03:15pm.
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