Like all people, taking a test brings to me an amount of anxiety - not debilitating, not even an obstacle, more like simply unwelcome thoughts that I know I should just ignore. Every year, all USAHockey referees have to attend a seminar and take a 50 question True/False closed book test. Before that, we have all already taken a 100 question open book test online, and started ref'ing games - so our heads should be pretty well into the sport by now. So last night I attended the last Mass. District USAHockey Seminar of the current season - a special session for level 3 officials only (guys & gals who have been ref'ing for at least 4 years - many like me in the 20+ range). We were mildly scolded over the appalling fact that apparently 66% of level 3 officials failed the level 3 test last year (it occurred to me that although no names were named, I think I've worked with a few of them!). One guy spent only 7 minutes to answer the 50 questions (he got 16 answers correct, and bounced back to beginner level 1 for his lack of effort).This year the instructrs were trying a new teaching techinque - we would all break down into groups of 6, each be given a copy of last years test, and one answer sheet per group. Using whatever resources we had at our disposal (rule books, manuals, cellphones, laptops, whatever) we were to answer the 50 questions. Whichever group was first to answer all 50 correctly would win a prize. So far in all previous seminars, the fastest time was 47 minutes. I was at a table with a gentleman about my age and a teen-20 kid, while across the aisle was a table of two teens and a 20something guy. As the kid next to me moved across to that table I thought to myself I should sit with the teenagers because everybody knows that teenage boys know everything there is to know and are never wrong - so I (and the guy next to me) joined them. Like most groups, we answered most questions quickly and confidently while a few elicited some amount of discussion and debate. Maybe six questions prompted somebody to open the rulebook to try to find the answer. We were one of the quicker groups to present our answers, but were told we had two wrong (but not told which two) - so had to go figure it out and correct ourselves. I know that there are always questions that are confusing due to the way they are worded - maybe/ maybe not trick questions, but certainly ones that can cause you to question the question ("what are they asking?"). I had already circled a few that I was suspicious of the first time through, so I immediately went back to revisit them. Almost immediately I had one of those "Oh, Duh!" moments and pointed out why #2 was false, not true. The other 5 looked, said "Oh, Duh", changed our answer and searched for the other incorrect answer. We had a few suspects, so we changed one more and brought it back again. "Still not 100% correct". I went back again to the one that bothered me the most, so we broke it down piece by piece as picky and technically as we could. With less than unanimous agreement, I convinced my teammates that we should change the answer and try again. BINGO! And we have a winner - and in record time of 43 minutes - DESTROYING the previous record time.
And we all got a nice Mass - USAHockey T-shirt for our efforts.
Then we got to take the real test. From experience I know that the most commonly missed questions from the previous year are always reworded and included into the current years test, and we had just disected last years test thoroughly. So despite the previous admonishment to take our time and think critically about our answers, I opted for the advise once given to me by the late great Referee-in-chief Milt Kaufman - "take the test like you are ref'ing a game. You don't have time to sit and dwell when you are on the ice. The situation happens and you make the call. If you know the rules, you will instictively make the right call." And of course if you DON'T know the rules, no amount of time spent thinking about them is going to help you. This has served me well for about 25 years, and I was the second person to hand in my completed test. As I stepped out of the meeting room into the hallway, I met my two District supervisors. I jokingly noted that I took longer than 7 minutes, and admitted that I will be really embarassed if I fail it this year. Bill laughed and said "No way, not you" and turned to Skip and said "He aced it last year you know". Apparently, that was noteworthy although it was a bit unnerving to think that out of a few hundred officials they oversee and the amount of incidences they had to address over the course of a year that he would remember what my last years test score was.
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