BJCP online exam:

[brenmurph]

Will, as previously debated it tricky to pass and not necessarily related to knowledge. Its time management we found the toughest. Really have to rattle through. We discovered having sat it a few times:

fly through them and answer the ones you are sure about that way you get the ones u defo can get right.

next idea to consider are the multiple choice multiple answer that can take ages to figure out and little chance of being sure you chose any or all the correct ones so they are the q's that I think u lose the most points on so I'd suggest answer all the ones you know instantly and when you have that done repeat the other ones where you have to spend a few moments to make the right decision.

having reviewed our experiences we also discovered that there many questions that are commonsense and almost seem too easy like is a judge allowed wear aftershaave...well clearly its a no but there are others that having reflected were just as obvious but we doughted ourselves

as for 'open book', u dont really have any time to use open book but your tables we found very useful and learned a lot from them.

so I feel if doing it again I'd include the approach above that way you defo get all the ones you know and score there and the more time consuming questions dont have time wasted on them till later.

All that said we dont know how they mark your paper maybe theres more points for the MCMA and less for the true / false.
Also theres a few questions on BJCP judging guiddes and comp day rules; we found many of the answers are in tables contained within this section of the BJCP exam guide.

hope this helps

[johnrm]

Hard luck Will, I feel your pain.

[Will_D]

@bren; Yes thanks for the tips!

Yep time management is the order of the day. I marked about 5 for later and got to 199 before the timer ran out.
A one minute net drop-out didn't help either!

I am trying again on Wednesday on a fater net connection!

I will answer in this order:

1. True/False and single M/C that you know.

2. MC/MA that you are very confident on

2. Go back over cat 1. then cat 2. 

Did you or any one else get questions about the BJCP_3_2 program (or something like that?) The phrase was new to me! (and I don't mean the 3 exams for 20 bucks option)

[Will_D]

@Bren: More questions:

Did you "mark" the answers you were leaving till later or did you just keep scrolling back and forth.

When you come to number 200 can you "next" onto question 1 or what!

[brenmurph]

I marked marked about 25-30 that I hadnt a clue about and where the question itself was headwrecking like " is it likely that it could be unlikely that a judge may not perceive diacetyl  That wasnt an actual question but an example of a format where u need  mental skills like Grammatical reasoning, spatial search, paired associates and odd one out-deciphering cognitive skills... These are the ones that most definatly decline with age and alcohol.


My idea was that if there was time ( which was debatable) I would then use the open book technique or laptop with the bjcp guide open.

I thought I got about half that I was confident were right and probably 50 I gave my best shot and prob 25 I just had to guess and hope for 50-50 success
Having reached question 200 you click summary and the questions You did not answer and / or marked for later will appear in colour. just go to the earliest one and you can procede page by page again from there. option 2 is click summary again and choose which one u want to answer.

********BIG TIP*******

when u dont know an answer, mark it for later and move swiftly on...REALLY IMPORTANT... having first had a guess...coz if u run out of time and havnt even taken a guess u defo get no score. If u take a guess while marking for later at least if u dont get enough time to go back to them you have some chance of getting a score ( i dont believe u lose points for wrong answers?)

[brenmurph]

@ Wulld.. Dont recall a 3 for 2... but Im not sure.. If so I would have made a guess at that one coz I havnt a clue wat it means....and yes I would prob think its something to do with the exam fee unless of course we all studies the 70 pages of rules in glorious detail as Im sure if its asked its prob in there somewhere

[Padraic]

Thanks Bren for all of the advice, I would agree with most of the points you have made! Best of luck to those still working on this!!

Did you or any one else get questions about the BJCP_3_2 program (or something like that?) The phrase was new to me! (and I don't mean the 3 exams for 20 bucks option)

I think that's a refernce that is pulling in the 3/2 offer's name by mistake. A question got Gordon Strong I guess.

[Partridge9]

Passed the online exam.

Is there a thread for registering for the tasting exam ??
I cant make it and I want to free up my space.

[Will_D]

Woo Hoo!!

2nd time lucky oops: Read More hard revision

Passed:

Need to do better in:
Beer Styles - Multiple Answer
Belgian Ales - True/False
Brown and Dark Ales - Multiple Choice
Dark Ale Comparison - True/False
Lagers - Multiple Choice
Pale Ale Comparison - True/False
Technical Brewing Questions - Multiple Answer  :

Well here's to some tasting experience on Saturdasy !

@Tube: Do we need to physically bring the certs to the exam (as it says!)

[brenmurph]

Cool we r gettin there

[johnrm]

I failed again even though I thought I did OK.

It didn't help that the session to the exam server dropped about half-way so I lost a few minutes.
My Internet is solid and other websites popped up straight away.

Unwillingly, I'm going to do the 3 for 2.

Depending on how I fare this week, I may not be up for the tasting exam in Dublin.

Be warned, I am on the cusp of being very anti-BJCP.

[johnrm]

...or fail harder.
Have we a list officially started:Gripes with BJCP?...

[brenmurph]

hard luck john.

did u read the tips we sent to willD?

we have commented extensively, the exam is not just about knowledge its about practical things like speed of your pc and internet connection. of course there are issues and we are getting a chance to highlight. We ( me and Kellie reckoned it took over 2 seconds to change a page on our crappy excuse for broadband ( our laptops are reasonably good) and we found it particularly slow to review the questions which didnt help. It seems when you have 10 mins left you cant go page by page through the pages with unanswered questions and therefore you have to scroll 50 pages to get to maybe 5 pages with unanswered questions so my point here is the 2-3 seconds to forward to the next page when we only have 18 seconds to anseer per question is a big disadvantage to those usoing 2 gazillion gigiwhatever BB in dublin on a quad core pc. Or maybe its the BJCP SERVERS??? Is everyone a few seconds to change to next question set?

What do you find most unfair / frustrating John?

[beerfly]

looks like we could all be made redundant in a few years anyway 
http://www.thejournal.ie/beer-tasting-robot-1292507-Jan2014/

[johnrm]

Firstly: I am not a beer Expert, or a beer snob.

1. There is no structure to the exam.
The questions are all over the place.
If it was the leaving cert, all the Theorems would be together.
Jumping from a style question to one on OG range to a trick double-negative (Verbal reasoning) is bollocks.

2. There is no indication if there is negative marking. (That I have seen)

3. One question was about the temperature appropriate to a Single Infusion.
In my mind there was no correct answer, as the temp I would aim for was not there.
The answers were in the form xxF (yyC).
The (closest) answer was in the form xxF (yyF), note the F in brackets.
So this is a trick question then?

4. There is no room for trick or inaccurate questions in this exam where there is such limited time. Questions should be presented fairly.

5. There is too much scope for gang-banging the exam, using rent-a-crowd to brute force it is possible, and rubbishes the exam.