adult track test equivalents in standard track?

[Skittl1321]

I'm frustrated by what seems to be a moving standard because I got a retry on a good test and a pass on one I thought sucked. I'm not going to complain about the pass...I'll just call it being even, but it made no sense. The comments on the retry papers were actually more complimentary.

It seems like all tests should be pass/fail for the test because the numbers don't mean much. 2.8 has the same meaning as if the judge gave you a green heart.

[tazsk8s]

It seems, however, that if standard track passing standard is 3.0, the judge writes down 3.0 when it is what they have come to expect as passing.  If the adult track passing standard is 2.8, they still expect the same thing, they just write down a lower number.  There is no quantification of what it means to be .2 less than the requirement for standard track.  That is what is so frustrating about adult track.  It is a crap shoot for what the judges are looking for.

+1,000,000

[blue111moon]

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree then.  *sigh*   Judging, like skating, is as much an art as it is a science, and results are always going to be subjective and flexible because of the human factor.

I just wish skaters and coaches would try to refrain from lumping all judges together into one amorphous being.  Just as coaches have differing philosophies and methods of coaching, judges have differing opinions on what skating "should" look like. (The same thing applies to Tech panel members, too, but that's a topic for another thread.)

I know that some competitions (Adult Nationals is one) set up seminars and offer skaters a chance to try out judging, just to see what it feels like to be on the other side of the barrier.  It's something I wish more people would take advantage of.  I know I gained of LOT of respect for the judges' job when I tried (and failed) to do it myself.

[phoenix]

^Exactly. Welcome to the world of testing skating. We've all passed something that probably should have failed, and failed something we maybe should have passed. If you keep testing long enough, it will probably happen again. All you can do is go out there, skate your best, and see how it goes. I tell me students, it all evens out in the end.

I had a student pass a test last fall, that NO WAY should have passed. I think those frustrate me the most!

[icedancer]

It seems like all tests should be pass/fail for the test because the numbers don't mean much. 2.8 has the same meaning as if the judge gave you a green heart.

This is a good idea on some level - like in nonqualifying competitions where the skater never sees your actual numbers.

On the other hand it gives you a good idea of which moves were "passing" and which ones you need to work on more or at least present better at a test session.

Thank you phoenix and bluemoon for your responses on this thread as you have said it better than I could.

I do think that perhaps some people should start trial-judging just to see what it is like to be sitting on that podium as it is a LOT different than what one might imagine (and a lot colder too, LOL! ).

[Skittl1321]

This is a good idea on some level - like in nonqualifying competitions where the skater never sees your actual numbers.

I've judged non-qual competitions and unless they are terrible the first skater pretty much always gets a score in the middle of the range given to us by the referee. We then place others around that score depending on what we thought of them.

It is a totally different thing than judging tests.  In a non-qual, a 3.2 doesn't have meaning on a set scale.  On a test- a 3.2 is supposed to meet some standard, and there SHOULD be documentation for what makes something a 3.2 as opposed to a 3.1

[icedancer]

I didn't realize you were a judge.
Sorry.



Never mind.

[Skittl1321]

You don't need to apologize. I'm not a USFS judge, so never done tests- which is really the root of this frustration is about. 

I've done ISI through FS3  and USFS basic skills, plus no-test and pre-pre (I don't think that was technically allowed...)
So the numbers used to judge are placeholders for ordinals.  They aren't for tests though.

[icedancer]

You don't need to apologize. I'm not a USFS judge, so never done tests- which is really the root of this frustration is about. 

I've done ISI through FS3  and USFS basic skills, plus no-test and pre-pre (I don't think that was technically allowed...)
So the numbers used to judge are placeholders for ordinals.  They aren't for tests though.

Oh.

Well, I was trying to agree with you on the  pass/fail idea and came up with that analogy.

Maybe it would be a good idea to get away from numbers all together.  BUT I am guessing that somewhere down the pike the numbers will get even more complex if the testing system goes the way of IJS.  I don't know if anyone is working on that but it is certainly something that has influenced the way we judge (especially freestyle and free dance) tests - thinking about things in terms of what is required, etc., through IJS (like is a sit spin really a sit spin if your butt is not parallel to your knee? And is this really possible for (most) adults to achieve?  Is it fair to think about it that way?).

I could go on and on I suppose.

[jjane45]

Dear icedancer2 and amazing judges on this forum, I truly appreciate all the details you share about judging, they are the most interesting to read!

[icedancer]

Dear icedancer2 and amazing judges on this forum, I truly appreciate all the details you share about judging, they are the most interesting to read!

Thank you.  I really appreciate it.  I love skating and I love judging because I have learned so much more about skating from becoming and being a judge - there is always more to learn!

I just wanted to make another comment about the pass/fail idea for tests with no numbers involved.  Would that be pass/fail for the whole test or each individual move?

Pass/fail for the whole test would be really easy for us judges but would give the skaters absolutely no feedback.  HOWEVER  in the old days when I was a kid skating in the 60s I don't ever remember seeing any numbers or getting any feedback from the judges.  The availability of the xerox machine was pretty limited and we never got copies of the judges scores, etc.  So you would just find out if you passed or failed.  And it used to be that you had to pass all three judges to pass a test.  There were other ridiculousnesses also such as if after 3 or so figures (on figures tests) they didn't think you were going to pass the test they would stop the test.  It was called "getting pulled" (from the test).  I had this happen on my 2nd figure test and it was pretty devastating.  There was no explanation except that it wasn't going to pass and so they just stopped the test (lots of people's tests got stopped that day).

So back to the question of pass/fail and no numbers at all for individual moves: this is the case for Pre-pre and Pre-Bronze Moves and the Pre-Pre and Pre-Bronze FS tests.  If one move is not up to passing standard, then what to do?  As a judge you have a choice: pass the whole test anyway as it is an encouragement test and then have people wonder why it passed even though one move was clearly not skated "up to standard" or you fail the whole test because one move was not giving a "pass". 

The way rest of the tests are set up now, with numbers given for each element (in Moves) - you have more leeway as a judge to pass the test even if there was one move that was clearly not a passing move, IF there is a move that you can justify giving a higher mark than the passing average mark.  Then the test will pass.  Sometimes it's a matter of thinking of the test as a whole and thinking (in the 30 seconds that you have to make your marks) "Is this a passing test" and then making your marks reflect that.  If each individual move was pass or fail then I would guess that you might have to get all passes for the test to pass.  Or there would be some other rule implemented that would say that you could pass with maybe one or two "failed" moves.  But then... well, you can see how this could get and then you would still have some disagreements between judges (because we all have different focuses (foci?) in our skating, different experiences, different expectations - and you would still have some people who are dissatisfied or discouraged about their marks and their ability to pass or fail a test... on that day, with that panel.

So I guess I would just have to say that if you are testing it is best to have a great attitude and just love your skating and skating in general.  Not everyone is going to pass every test.  That is not the point.  If you don.t want to test then that is okay too because there are so many other ways to enjoy skating besides testing...

Anyway, I guess I could go on and on and will continue to learn and grow through this process.  I do appreciate this board and other skating-related internet boards because it gives me an idea of what people are thinking and I hope that it has made me a better judge.  I would love to see the Adult testing structure change even more than it has although I kind of doubt that I will be joining any related committees anytime soon, LOL.

[VAsk8r]

This is an interesting discussion. I've failed my bronze moves twice. I'm also the first student testing adult bronze moves my coach has ever worked with. After I failed the first test (badly) she talked to the judges, and they told her they judged the test to the same standard as they'd judge a preliminary test.

The second time was interesting because one of the judges was an international judge flown in from afar. I did come much closer to passing, but he gave me considerably lower scores than the other two judges.