Test time?

[Jay R]

There are an awful lot of posts about test questions these last few days. I can understand that this forum is a good place to discuss such questions. However some of these questions are quite simple; read a rulebook.

On this topic, we are writing our test in early December. We all write it the same night. Some of you seem to have open book tests which you then mail in. Is this common?

[firedoc]

In Nassau County (NY) we take our yearly exam at home and then turn it in at our association meeting. In many ways this type of test is more advantageous because most of us will check the questions in the appropriate section of the rule book. This forces us to read the rule book and the case book. We also receive points based on the test which are used to rate us.

[JRutledge]

We also have an open book test for the Part 1. The test is due on Novemeber 18, 2003. We can mail this test in, or we can do it online. The results are used for some points in an overall playoff system, but just a small factor.

Peace

[joshlamerritt]

Our test was open book as well. We took it as a group after the rules clinic, then we could retake if we didn't like out score at the next meeting (higher score counts). This is the second board I have been with. Previous board was not open book.

I am not sure which way I like better. Both have advantages. At my previous board, I had to do alot of studying prior to the test, which is obviously advantagous. However, I did like the way my current board administered the test because we were not only able to use the rule book and learn specific cases that way, but were also able to group experienced officials with inexperienced officials and discuss the test as we were taking it, which gave the newer officials some good pratical application. The only drawback to this, in my opinion, was the officials that are no longer "newbies" but also aren't varsity officials - the middle-of-the-pack officials - seem to ride the coattails of the varsity officials and don't really seem to want to understand the complex rules on their own.

[Tim Roden]

Both in Texas and Colorado, we had open book, open neighbor test during an association meeting. In fact,this year is the first time I actually made it through my test without having someone step in and say, "the answers are #1, true, #2, false,... " It was a great experience and I beleive I got pretty close to a 100 with the efforts of those I took the test with debating rules and readings of rules.

[dblref]

In my association (Northern Virginia), our tests are not open book and we can't do them at home. We have several dates to take the exam because we have Group A and AA girls that play in the fall. I took my exam in August. It will be given for Winter ball in early December. If we did not like our August score, we can take it again. We cannot officiate Fall ball unless we take the exam in August.