Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
(Post 1010424)
Well unless we know where he/she is located, we cannot quite call it cheating, can we?
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For many years here in my little corner of Connecticut, we would take the annual IAABO Refresher Exam as an individual, at home, open book test, and send in the answers to be graded to count toward our rating and ranking.
There was just too much cheating going on. A few guys would somehow get access to the answer sheet, often from friends in other states, and share it with their local friends, often discussing the correct answers as a small group, in someone's living room, or at someone's dining room table (often with refreshments served, I knew of one group where everyone would chip in five bucks for pizza and beer). In some cases guys would simply copy the correct answers to their own exam, not even reading the questions. Guys with no access to the answer sheet, or to friends holding group discussions (in other words, the way the Exam was supposed to be taken), were at a major disadvantage (the annual IAABO Refresher Exam can be very tricky. Not as tricky a JRutledge's inside, and/or outside, diameter of the rim, but still pretty tricky).
The Refresher Exam, as a rating tool, became ineffective. Eventually the powers to be just through up their hands and gave up, basically legalizing what was going on illegally.
We still use the IAABO Refresher Exam. We still take it as an individual, at home, open book test. The next step is to bring our answered exam to one of about a dozen and a half Refresher Exam meetings held at various times at various locations. You must have an answered exam to get into one of these meetings (even if all the questions are answered incorrectly, nobody checks for incorrect answers, just for an answered, completed exam). Attendance is strictly taken at these meetings. At these meetings a leader has the correct answers, and we discuss each question, eventually get the correct answer, and get to ask followup questions. Some leaders even provide copies of the answer sheet with answer citations.
We no longer use the Refresher Exam for our ratings process.
However, the penalty for not showing up at one of these board-sponsored Refresher Exam meeting is quite severe, no game assignments for the season, so it behooves us to show up.
(Note: Do not confuse this with the initial exam to join IAABO. That's still given as an individual, closed book exam, at one location, in a proctored setting.)