Unit 2 Test

Sat April 23, 2011

I sat for the WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust) Unit 2 test last week. This is the mandatory first exam that any WSET Diploma student must take before they can take any other. It covers all the aspects of Viticulture, Vinification, and Maturation, Treatments, and Bottling of wine.

This actually makes a lot of sense because most of the concepts and terms that you will encounter in other Units have their fundamentals in these two areas. You couldn't understand Sherry production, for example, (despite the great website that I mentioned in my last post) without realizing the contributions made in the vineyard, the soils, the climate, and techniques, etc.

You get a study guide for Unit 2 - 188 pages of dense detailed reading. Dense in the sense of compact not in the sense of unreadable. There is just a lot to learn. Unlike other sections of the Diploma Certification in which Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine is the required text, in this case the study guide is the text. Two other texts are recommended : Viticulture by Stephen Skelton , and Understanding Wine Technology by David Bird. Both of these books are both readable and informative but the study guide is the only source of questions on the test. The downside is that they can (and do!) take one sentence out of the text and make a question out of it.

I felt comfortable coming into this Unit because of my 2 years at Napa Valley College and specifically the tutelage of Dr Steve Krebs and Bryan Avila, and I probably coiuld have passed the test based on that alone, but as always my goal is to do the best that I can in these exams, not to just skate by and to do that requires a lot of study.

The test is 100 multiple choice questions. The study guide has end of unit tests and a sample test at the end, and I don't think ANY of the sample questions actually end up on the test, so while they give you a very good idea of topics involved and the types of questions, they are no help in actually studying. Sometimes I think you could pass the test by studying everything that is NOT in the sample questions. There are no essay questions and no tasting involved in this Unit. You never get to find out what you missed or the correct answers but it allows WSET to maintain sets of questions that can't be pre-studied, and keeps the certification fair.

You get 90 minutes which is actually more than enough time to take the test. I think I took about 50-55 minutes so the time pressure isn't too bad. Other candidates took about the same amount of time. The passing grade is kept low ( I think ) at 55% so they can make the questions as hard as they need to create a bell shaped curve and eliminate those that don't actually take the time to study the material. Historically about 81% of students pass this test on their first try.

You can take WSET classes. I did the self study which seems to make sense for this Unit depending on how you learn (i.e. reading vs listening). You have to plan for 1-2 months of 2-3 hours a day, I think to prep for this test. Not to just read the material, but you also have to review it and give it time to settle in and make sense. WSET says to plan for 60 hours of self study and having a study plan is essential. I read the course guide at least 3 times. The first time I just read it. The 2nd time I underlined, and the 3rd time I refreshed and prepped for the test. All and all i am sure I did over 60 hours of study.

I think I did pretty well on the test. There were a couple of questions that I don't think were in the book. There were 6 or so where I guessed. 3 or 4 where I changed my answers after thinking about the question for a minute. And probably another 4-5 where i thought I knew the answer but didn't. I should get my resjults in another week or two. While other exams take 7-10 weeks (!) to get results, this one comes back in around 3.

john