BJCP Online Exam Cheat Sheet
The online exam consists of 200 multiple-choice and true/false questions with 60 minutes allotted for answering them. Questions cover beer styles, techniques/ingredients used in brewing as well as any potential faults in beer production.
An online exam can be daunting for even experienced homebrewers. Here are resources that will help you prepare for it.
1. BJCP Study Guide
Formerly, prospective BJCP judges were required to pass a written proficiency exam combining essay questions with short answer questions and a beer tasting component. While time-consuming, this exam covered topics such as beer styles and history, ingredients and techniques. Now the online tasting and essay exam offers shorter yet similar material covering similar material; both must be passed for higher ranks at BJCP.
To successfully pass an entrance exam, candidates should utilize various resources including the BJCP Entrance Exam Question Pool and Style Guidelines. In addition, their website also lists exam locations where qualified BJCP members are ready and waiting to administer it.
Exam questions are designed to assess examinee knowledge of the brewing process, BJCP style guidelines and beer faults. A passing score on this exam requires answers that provide aroma, appearance, flavor and mouthfeel description according to BJCP style guidelines; additional points will be awarded if answers provide history, geography, classic commercial examples of style parameters unique ingredients as well as fermentation techniques and conditions relating to style parameters.
At least half of the questions on the online Entrance Exam focus on information found in the BJCP Style Guidelines, making these questions particularly challenging to answer under time constraints due to needing to compare extremely minor details of two beers with distinct colors or strengths. To maximize speed and accuracy in these comparisons quickly and accurately, candidates are recommended using tools like the Compare-O-Matic provided by BJCP.
The online Entrance Exam consists of multiple choice and true/false questions that cover BJCP general information, beer styles and faults. Answering such questions tends to be easier for those familiar with the BJCP style guidelines; questions that inquire into specific styles’ characteristics tend to be easier for those with knowledge of their color, strength, body and IBUs differences between styles.
2. BJCP Style Guidelines
The BJCP website provides an informative overview of their Beer Judge Entrance Exam online process and information for those interested in becoming beer judges. This exam comprises 180 multiple-choice questions as well as a tasting component. This exam is intended to assess knowledge of beer styles and characteristics as well as scoring abilities during tasting sessions. The BJCP Style Guidelines can be utilized during this open book examination process. However, it would be wrong to presume that one could easily look up answers for all questions on the BJCP exam online exam in 60 minutes. Frantic searching will only increase anxiety levels during an already intense examination experience.
The BJCP Style Guidelines define several terms with specific meaning, including “category,” “subcategory,” and “style.” These three categories describe specific types of beers, meads or ciders while style details major characteristics for any given style. While BJCP provides guidelines for many styles of beer production, brewers can create products outside existing guidelines if desired.
Guidelines provide useful tools for judging specific beer styles, and they serve as useful benchmarks of variation for specific styles. A great judge knows this and allows for the interpretation of guidelines by brewers themselves.
Preparing for an exam requires reviewing its guidelines thoroughly. This means looking at pictures and descriptions of beers as well as deciding how each should be scored. Pay attention to details such as body, color, aroma and flavor when answering any questions correctly.
The Beer Judge Certification Program Style Guide was recently revised, and can now be downloaded from their website. This version also offers a style comparison feature that lets you compare beers of different styles side-by-side. With proper knowledge of these guidelines, prospective judges should be able to answer 90 percent of multiple choice (MC) questions correctly and 75% of True/False ones correctly.
3. BJCP Exam Scoring Guide
The BJCP Exam Scoring Guide is a detailed rubric designed for exam graders to use when evaluating examinees on four components of their scoresheet: accuracy, perception, descriptive ability and feedback. As current or aspiring judges use it to ensure their scores match up with what level of judging they can aspire to, as well as to construct high quality scoresheets.
Although the BJCP Entrance Exam is open-book, many newer judges still rely on study guides and other resources when filling out their scoresheets. The Exam Scoring Guide can help them use these resources effectively during their exam and avoid common mistakes that could cost points – for example skipping over Style Guidelines instead of referring to other beer or brewing books when answering questions could lessen chances of passing this exam and should be avoided.
Newer judges often make the mistake of overlooking key components when scoring beers, such as failing to identify desirable elements like hop bitterness in an IPA as desirable and incurring deductions for providing incomplete descriptions. This mistake can easily be avoided by reviewing the BJCP Style Guidelines prior to taking their exams.
BJCP’s online exam is intended to be an accurate representation of an actual judging competition experience, so prospective judges need to prepare thoroughly in advance for its challenge of answering 180 questions within 60 minutes. While this may be daunting, if prepared accordingly a satisfactory score can be attained.
To assist prospective judges, the BJCP has created a 20 question practice version of its Entrance Exam that can be taken multiple times for $20 each time.
This practice exam contains multiple-choice (MC), true/false (TF), and essay questions to assess knowledge about beer styles, recipes and brewing techniques; flavor characteristics as well as effects of variables on its appearance and mouthfeel are also investigated in depth in these questions.
4. BJCP Online Practice Exam
The BJCP Online Practice Exam provides an ideal opportunity for aspiring judges to gain practical experience with the format of an online Beer Entrance Examination. It features 124 random true/false questions (with accompanying answers) on beer styles, characteristics and aspects of ingredients and brewing process found in the BJCP Study Guide – serving to identify any knowledge gaps about specific beers styles or characteristics as they change as a result of their brewing processes.
This online practice exam features 24 multiple-choice-multiple-answer questions designed to assess an examinee’s ability to select all applicable answers for each question. Like the TF questions, most future judges should find these types of questions easy enough to tackle; but future judges must take these ones seriously as they are often the hardest for them.
Finally, this exam features several essay questions designed to test an examinee’s ability and opinions of beer writing. These essays can make or break an examinee’s score on the written portion of the exam; therefore it is vital for them to spend adequate time preparing to write about beer.
The BJCP online entrance exam is not designed as a pass/fail test; rather, it evaluates an examinee’s ability to provide accurate and descriptive scoring sheets and feedback for six ciders served at fifteen minute intervals. The online exam only lasts ninety minutes; any incorrect answers will reduce an examinee’s score, and if an examinee fails within that time they cannot retake their exam; they will forfeit both fees paid and their exam fee will not be returned.