ISI Update Test – Commonly Misunderstood Questions

by Kim Hansen

I’d like to take this opportunity to go over some commonly misunderstood questions on the ISI Update Test in an effort to clear up any confusion that may exist. Before I do, however, I want to clarify the purpose of the update test.

The test is released every two years to coincide with the rule changes and revisions released by the ISI Skating Programs and Judging Committee. It is an open-book test designed to ensure that judges are current on the rule changes and know where to find them in their ISI Handbook.

In August, the 2018 Update Test was released. At that time, it was announced that the test would cost $10 before Sept. 1 and $20 after that date. Unfortunately, several coaches misunderstood and thought that the test had to be taken by Sept. 1. It appears that some took the test in haste, believing that they had to meet this deadline. This was not and will never be the case. To be clear, ISI requires that any coaches that have an existing judge certification passed prior to any new rules changes must take and pass the update test before sitting on a judge panel. Coaches will accomplish this at varying times of the year since some may not take skaters to their first events until January.

Judging Solo Compulsories
In reviewing 50-75 tests, it is apparent that there is confusion surrounding the judging of Solo Compulsories. To clarify, let me begin with some background. As we all know, the Solo Compulsory event is very easy to judge until it’s not — for instance, when a skater performs a maneuver twice, performs the wrong maneuver or adds something extra that is not allowed. Judge panels have struggled with knowing how to best reflect the scores when facing these types of situations.

In 2014, when a skater did a maneuver twice, the judge panels were directed to judge the first one, take the second one to be the offering for the next maneuver, which, of course, would be the wrong maneuver and subsequently receive a zero. This was not only confusing but also created unnecessary penalties.

Therefore, in 2016, the committee created a rule that helped rectify this situation. The rule still stands today. When a skater does a maneuver twice, the first one is judged and the second one is ignored. The only time a score of zero is given is when a skater does not do a required maneuver, period. In that case, all three judges mark a zero in the column of the missing maneuver.

Another issue that the committee worked to solve entailed how to judge a skater performing an illegal maneuver, such as a tap toe. In 2014, a rule was created, mandating that the referee/judge 1 would give the skater a 2.0 in the newly created criterion called General Overall. The referee/judge 1 was instructed to keep all other skaters in the group at a 7.0 down the column in that criterion if they did not make that mistake, thus making that criterion not impactful on the outcome of the event but only for the skater who performed the extra illegal maneuver.

While in theory this worked, it really didn’t make a lot of sense to coaches serving as referees/judges because of the “General Overall” verbiage. Therefore, in 2016, the committee revised the verbiage in the last column for the referee only and called it “Penalty.” This criterion is unique to this event; there is no other penalty column in the ISI program. It must be used correctly by judges serving as referees, however, and that is why it was included as a question on the 2018 update test even though it was not a new rule. Unfortunately, the question was missed on more than 75 percent of the tests. Hopefully, this article clarifies it.

In the following scenario, judging should look like this if one skater performed two salchows, another did an illegal tap toe and a third left out an element altogether:

REFEREE/JUDGE 1

You can see clearly who did what, except for the skater that did two salchows. As instructed, the panel ignored it and no penalty was taken.

Kim Hansen is ISI’s Skating Programs and National Events director. Please contact her at Khansen@skateisi.org or 972-735-8800 if you have additional questions regarding the ISI Update Test.