Worst questions on this year's NFHS Part 1 exam.

[Tru_in_Blu]

Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA

IMO you may be overthinking it. The question asks for a condition of a helmet which would cause the helmet to not be legal. It did not ask for the umpire to define an illegal catcher's helmet. Obviously, a matte surface meets the requirement of the rule. But I wouldn't doubt for a minute that some coach out there has or will try to convince an umpire that anything other than a helmet with a matte finish is illegal because of a potential glare. Personally, I think the rule is a joke.

To be fair, most of the time the rule is verbatim from the book. The few occasions it isn't are those that are confusing.

There was a question this year that added "and spouses" to the end of it which made it wrong. I checked the NFHS site for the softball rules and searched for the word "matte". It's not in the rule book. I still got the question right, but it was a departure from the norm. This was one we DID have to overthink.

I got the one about the "adult" coach saying his/her team was properly equipped wrong. The passage in the book says this is the "head" coach's responsibility. But "adult" coach was deemed to be a correct response.

And a taper no longer has to be "smooth".

On it goes...