WSET Diploma: Just How Hard is It? Part 3: The Write Stuff

“Now to the key point: how fast can you write? This is a question of penmanship. Do you know how long it takes you to handwrite a lot of legible words? Can you keep that pace up for hours? ”

I think I may have figured out a key reason why passing the D3 wines-of-the-world theory exam is so hard, and why getting Distinction is virtually impossible.

Before I get to that, I need to point out that the main reason is probably because it demands comprehensive knowledge of a genuinely massive amount of material.

Now to the key point: how fast can you write? This is a question of penmanship. Do you know how long it takes you to handwrite a lot of legible words? Can you keep that pace up for hours?

Here’s why that matters.

Not only is the exam comprehensive, but it subjects you to a huge amount of time pressure. When I took it, you had to answer five questions in three hours.  The format has changed a little, but the same concepts should apply. You’ll need to adjust the timing in light of the current specification. Meanwhile, here’s the analysis based on the previous format.

(By the way, we had to answer all these theory questions in the afternoon after we did the 12 wine blind tasting exam that same morning. WSET adopted the “kinder, gentler” two day testing fairly recently.)

 Say you take the first five minutes to read through all of the questions, panic briefly over the obscure ones, and pick which ones to answer. Then, for each question you answer, you spend another five minutes per question thinking about what to say.

 That leaves 32 minutes of writing time per question. To pass, you need 55 points, or over 2 points a minute, every minute, for >2.5 hours. And a point is what the examiner is looking for, not necessarily what you think is relevant. So, to be safe, you need to aim for more than the minimum in case you don’t get credit for some, or the examiner isn’t able to read your writing.

 How fast can you write? I can write “I love Rutherglen Muscat” over and over again at the rate of about 20 words per minute. So, if I don’t have to think, and the words just pour out, the maximum word count for my answer will be 640 words — assuming (optimistically) that my hand never gets tired or cramped.

 What’s it take for Distinction? It’s hard to say for sure, but a clue was in our old D3 book. They had a sample exam question involving Cabernet Sauvignon in 4 different regions. WSET’s sample answer was >1100 words. Or nearly twice what I could physically write in the time allotted.

 Bottom Line: Especially for those who use computers for almost everything, squeezing a stress ball while you are studying may help relieve WSET stress by strengthening the handwriting muscles you’ll need to squeeze out a few more points.