[BillyMac]

Here, on my local Connecticut board, we've gone through a few different procedures regarding taking the annual IAABO Refresher Exam, which counts ten percent toward our individual rating, and ranking.

Many years ago, we were all expected to take the exam, individually, as an open book exam, at home, over a two week period. This was when the internet was nothing more than a twinkle in Al Gore's eye.

The way it always turned out was that some officials, usually some of our more veteran officials, would somehow gain access to the IAABO answer sheet, I'm not sure how, but those answer sheets always seemed to be available to a few officials. In some cases those officials with the answer sheets would simply fill in the IAABO answers and submit their exams. In other cases, those officials would give the answers to some of their close friends on the board, who would then simply fill in the IAABO answers and submit their exams. In yet other cases, officials would meet in small, informal groups, having already filled in their own answers on their open book, take home exam, and go over the answers together, comparing their answers with the IAABO answers, that, as I already stated above, seemed to be available to a few officials every year. When the meeting was over, all the officials in this small, informal group, would have the IAABO answers on their answer sheet.

Back then, I was on the rating committee that was in charge of correcting these submitted exams. For those of you not familiar with the annual IAABO Refresher Exam, it's contains many hard, tricky, often poorly worded, questions, with answers that, very often, hinge on a single word in the question. When we were using this procedure, and I remind you, "officially" we were all expected to take the exam, individually, as an open book exam, at home, the scores fell into two groups. Those who did not follow the "official" procedure, and had access to an answer sheet, either individually, from a friend, or after participating in one of these small, informal, groups, had almost all the questions correct. The reason I say "almost" is that every year the international IAABO organization, for reasons that I could never fathom, makes at least one mistake on the answer sheet, and I'm not talking about a mistake in interpretation, I mean an outright mistake, like two plus two equals five. The group of officials that followed the "official" procedure, that is, without any access to the answer sheet, usually got many questions incorrect, I told you the exam is very difficult, even as an open book exam, with many tricky, often poorly worded, questions, with answers that hinge on a single word in the question, in other words, it's a poorly constructed exam.

Our rating committee saw the disparity of the scores, and the unfairness, with these two groups of officials, so we came up with a new procedure, in which we "officially" encouraged officials to get together in informal, small, study groups, to go over their answers together, without acknowledging the existence of the availability of the answer sheets. We kind of covered our eyes to the existence of "the elephant in the room", i.e. the existence of these answer sheets. We did this for several years, and noticed a change in the scores. Now, a much larger group of officials would get "almost" all the questions correct, but there was still a sizable group that would get many questions incorrect. Looking into this, our committee discovered that some of our newer officials had trouble, not yet having made friends on our board, finding an informal study group to participate in.

Our newest procedure actually sets up about a dozen "official" study groups, held at different locations, on different dates, in a two week time frame, with at least one study leader, usually a member of our executive committee, who has the answer sheet. We must complete our exam, at home, on our own, which is our "ticket" into one of these groups. We go over each question, discussing the answer, before getting the correct answer, which often leads to further discussion. Those of us who participate in these "official" study groups must sign in at these meetings, and by doing so, get full credit for the exam. We don't even have to submit our exam.

Attendance at these study groups is voluntary. There are some officials who choose not to attend, and they can submit their individual exam to the rating committee for scoring. Again, these exams fall into two groups. Some have many incorrect answers, again a testament as to how difficult, and poorly constructed, the exam is. Another group has "almost" perfect scores, "almost" because these officials got the answers from some of their friends who had attended a study group, and the "mistakes" from IAABO answer sheet showed up in these scores.

Our latest change will try to stop the group of officials who do not actually take the exam, who do not attend a study group, and simply copy the answers from a friend. At our final business meeting last season, we tried to pass a constitutional by-law change that would make it mandatory to attend one of these study groups, again with a completed exam needed as a "ticket" into one of these meetings. Those that attend one of these study groups would get full credit, again counting toward their rating, and ranking, on the exam. Those who didn't attend a study group would get no credit, a major hit, ten percent, against their ratings, and ranking. The constitutional by-law change didn't pass after a vote, because someone brought up the fact that an official who is unable to attend a meeting due to a health issue, family emergency, or business emergency, will have no option, the way the by-law change was written, but to get no credit for the exam. Next year this change will be voted on again, but with a option that in such emergency circumstances, the executive committee can vote to give full credit to officials who are unable to attend a study group as a result of such an emergency circumstance.

What's our purpose in regard to the exam? First, to get everyone to actually take the exam, individually, as an open book exam. The second purpose is to get everyone to attend a study group to get involved with discussions about the exam questions, and answers.