[dkfick]

Well I took the written exam yesterday... Wish I had more knowledge based questions vs "memorize this" questions that involved just writing down style guidelines from memory.  I spent far too much time writting style guidelines and neglected parts of the recipe question etc... I don't know if I got the 75 I needed or not... Probably somewhere right around there if I were to hazard a guess... Could go either way.

Fingers are still a bit sore from writing.  The 90 minute time limit on the exam is definiantly the hardest part of the exam.  I didn't get 'stumped' by the questions.  It was just a "OMG I don't have time to answer" scenario.  I realize it can be answered in that time limit.. Perhaps I just write slow or I wasn't rehearsed enough in writing out my answers.  I don't recall sitting there not writting very much.  It was pretty much non-stop writing for 90 minutes.  At any rate my recommendation would be to practice the style questions as they took up all my clock. (write out aroma, appearance, flavor, and mouthfeel for 3 styles.  Identify ingredients or history for each of them.  Name at least 1 classic example of each. List similarities between the 3 styles and differences between the 3 styles.)  I had 2 of those and they were what I spent too much time on so I would practice writing those out as fast as possible... perhaps time yourself?

[MDixon]

http://mashbang.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/bjcp-written-proficiency-exam-strategy/

[dkfick]

Yeah I agree with that.  Part of the issue was my own biff.  I knew there would be 2 style questions.  I just didn't realize there was only a single type of style question I guess.  I should have but for some reason I had it in my head that there was another type and I wouldn't get 2 of those... Yeah I'm an idiot lol.

[klickitat jim]

Who decides which styles?

[AmandaK]

The 90 minute time limit on the exam is definiantly the hardest part of the exam.  I didn't get 'stumped' by the questions.  It was just a "OMG I don't have time to answer" scenario.  I realize it can be answered in that time limit.. Perhaps I just write slow or I wasn't rehearsed enough in writing out my answers.  I don't recall sitting there not writting very much.  It was pretty much non-stop writing for 90 minutes. 

So, for people reading this in the future, practice your answers. Time yourself. Prepare well.

• Practiced writing out my answers. You know the pool of questions that can be on the written exam. Be sure to have well thought out and complete answers for all of them.

[dkfick]

Who decides which styles?

There is a list of 86 3-way pairings you could possibly get in the style guidelines.  I think it's suppose to be random from those... Not sure how they do 'random' though ;-)

[MDixon]

The queried styles are in the Study Guide and as was stated there are 86 combinations. One could count the total number styles if they were so inclined.

The EDs choose the styles for each exam.

[james]

Fingers are still a bit sore from writing.  The 90 minute time limit on the exam is definiantly the hardest part of the exam.  I didn't get 'stumped' by the questions.  It was just a "OMG I don't have time to answer" scenario.  I realize it can be answered in that time limit.. Perhaps I just write slow or I wasn't rehearsed enough in writing out my answers.  I don't recall sitting there not writting very much.  It was pretty much non-stop writing for 90 minutes. 

90 minutes sounds great, last time I took the written it was the legacy exam with 10 questions and  4 beers to judge in 3 hours.  The only time I stopped writing was when I got up to go to the restroom.

Congrats on taking the exam, just getting to that point is a major accomplishment!

I've been studying to retake the exam in March

[dsmitch19]

Congrats on taking it! I wish you a speedy exam grading process. I'm anxiously awaiting my written score from Nov.

Time management is difficult and people underestimate the need to practice it. 15-17 minutes seems like a long time but it really isn't for complex questions. The first time I practiced writing an answer, I only got about half of what I wanted to say written out. It was then a process of figuring out what info from my study guide I could leave out and what I thought would help improve my score. I learned that I can write about 1.5-2 full pages of text in about 15 minutes, so that helped guide my answer planning. 

Mind sharing what your technical questions were? I'm always curious to hear what questions people got. If you read the study guide, you'll see that there is only the one possible style question. There used to be more, but they took it down to the one basic compare/contrast question during the last exam revision.