I Can Haz Badjj?

[winterbadger]

Huzzah! Once again I have dodged the trick questions (well, most of them) and triumphed over the the screwy hypotheticals and passed the ref exam for grade 8. I got 6 questions wrong, for a score of 92%, and most of those were in the "are they asking me if you *can* or if you *should*?" department. Two I just had a total brainburp and gave identical, "equally wrong in both cases when they should have been the same" answers.

Now I just have to get in the right physical condition to run lines for 1-2 matches (I am *still* not going to volunteer to center a match, not yet) and the mental condition to be yelled at by angry players without losing it.

Comments

Well done, sir!

[rockethokie.livejournal.com]

Grade 8! You're on the move.

I passed my AYSO Intermediate exam and need to CR a few more games (well, 14) before I upgrade. I'm hoping to finish that this year. I'm also not ready to run a full game.

The problem with those exams is in needing to read the question, the whole question, and nothing but the question. Reading into it or not reading it all gets you every time!

Re: Well done, sir!

[winterbadger]

Well, and the test questions are, frankly, many of them badly written. Some are written with an intent to deceive (introducing extraneous factors), which is one things, but others are just impenetrable, making a situation that is clear on the field confusing to the reader. I stayed after to get some things explained (these turned out to be the questions that turned on issues of "you will never do this, but in theory you could") and spent most of the time helping other students who had missed a lot of question I had gotten right understand what the correct answer was. Some of the cases were simple misunderstanding (I was gobsmacked by the one fellow who asked the instructor after all the testing was over "So, look, *how* do you decide whether to give a direct or indirect free kick?"!!!!) but a lot of them were cases where the student knew the right answer, but the way the question was worded had caused them to put a different answer. That, to me is the definition of a bad test.

Grade 8: No, I've always been Grade 8--I don't really aspire to more than that, at least not now.

Good for you for passing your exam! And the fact that you've centered *any* games is a credit---it's like being a program manager, it's an honour that I dream not of! ;-)

[schizokitty.livejournal.com]

Congrats! I have no idea what goes on and what you have to do, but...congrats! ^_^;

[winterbadger]

I have to learn this

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/lawsofthegame.html

and these

http://www.ussoccer.com/laws/index.jsp.html

and all of these

http://www.ussoccer.com/laws/papers.jsp.html

and then answer questions in which I apply all of that knowledge, while being aware that in actual rec-league games many of these will be changed or ignored. :-)

Re: Well done, sir!

[rockethokie.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you could start as an 8. Why don't you try centering for a youth game? The little ones don't foul each other hard and the field is smaller.

A variant of the 80/20 rule really does come into play on covering games. Sometimes it's hard to get a full crew for the upper age divisions. We don't have lots of folks ranked at Intermediate or Advanced. I'm not sure if we even have one at National. If I can move up, then those above me would be freer to cover the U-19/16/14 divisions. I don't understand just doing one or two games a season. How do you ever improve without practice?

Re: Well done, sir!

[winterbadger]

I didn't know you could start as an 8.

Gosh, yes. There's no minimum age. The initial course is longer, and the test may be different, but I'm sure you could ace it.

Upgrading to 7 requires working 100 + games (75 as center). (Guess what I'm never going to do? ;-)

Why don't you try centering for a youth game? The little ones don't foul each other hard and the field is smaller.

Lack of confidence. :-) But I suppose I may lose that some day.