Laws of the game test L6
- Thread starter Egg man
- Start date
I’m pretty sure they are. Again, it may vary from county to county though.
ChasObserverRefDeveloper
Regular Contributor
With the relaxation of Covid restrictions in England, most counties will incorporate the LOTG exam into a training/ development session at a CFA location (some do these at the start of the season, some later on)
Multi-choice is normal in most.
Multi-choice is normal in most.
ChasObserverRefDeveloper
Regular Contributor
No. The required percentage for a pass is advised at the time of the exam.
I think this is a slight exaggeration. It's considerably easier than a lot of LOTG quizzes. On the whole they're not trying to catch you out with obscure laws that almost never get applied.
I got 100% in my 7->6 test and I definitely didn't know every single clause of law off by heart.
So how do you comfortably step onto a football pitch if you don't know every law? The point of an exam is to test your knowledge of what might happen when you are refereeing. When you set foot onto the green stuff you have no idea what might happen, so you have to be prepared for any eventuality and that means knowing every low off by heart.
If everyone knew every law, then this site would just be people selling second hand kit!
We are frequently discussing points where we feel those at the highest level have applied the laws incorrectly. Admittedly they are less likely to do it than the inexperienced amongst us (me).
The more we read it, the more we apply it, the more we discuss it, the better we get.
ChasObserverRefDeveloper
Regular Contributor
The learning point from this is that members frequently ask questions to which they should know the answer or add comments which indicate they don't - and these are not obscure points of law but standard stuff.
Translate that to the f. o. p. in their next game, where they will be expected to know the laws (no-one else will)
Rusty is right - we don't know what to expect in our next game, so prepare by learning the laws.
Conversely, I'm the ref. I'm a neutral party. And if I know 90% of the laws, that's probably twice as much as anyone else on the pitch.
And the laws are poorly written and bloated. Frequently discussions come up on here where FAQ's and circulars are referenced - is that part of what every referee is expected to know or not? How about this red line/green line and apparently a majority of the ball needing to be in the red zone for handball - is the FA twitter account where that was posted something I'm supposed to monitor and incorporate into my understanding of law?
And further to that - why is the pass mark of an LOTG test only 80% if we're expected to know everything in order to consider ourselves worthy of stepping onto the pitch? Yes it's great if we all try to do better, but I don't see the benefit of putting out the idea of unrealistic standards on here. The FA set the pass mark at 80% - so the message there is clear: refereeing is about knowing most of the laws pretty well, applying them fairly and managing the situation effectively when you have to get involved.
And the laws are poorly written and bloated. Frequently discussions come up on here where FAQ's and circulars are referenced - is that part of what every referee is expected to know or not? How about this red line/green line and apparently a majority of the ball needing to be in the red zone for handball - is the FA twitter account where that was posted something I'm supposed to monitor and incorporate into my understanding of law?
And further to that - why is the pass mark of an LOTG test only 80% if we're expected to know everything in order to consider ourselves worthy of stepping onto the pitch? Yes it's great if we all try to do better, but I don't see the benefit of putting out the idea of unrealistic standards on here. The FA set the pass mark at 80% - so the message there is clear: refereeing is about knowing most of the laws pretty well, applying them fairly and managing the situation effectively when you have to get involved.
Russell Jones
RefChat Addict
Nicely put Graham, expecting perfection from referees is somewhat unrealistic in light of the weekly debates about decisions from our best officials operating at the highest levels!
That said, I do think we need to aspire to much much better LOTG knowledge from the vast bulk of referees. One thing I stress to all attendees on the basic training course is that if they want to get paid for pitching up on a Sat or Sun, then the teams have a right to expect them to be (and stay) up to date with the detail of the LOTG. My overall experience of county promotion candidates (who you'd hope would be better informed than the 'average' referee) is that this is simply not the case. I'll defend referees all day for making an honest mistake on the FOP because of poor positioning or lack of experience .. but making basic errors in law is (IMO) indefensible. For this reason I'm a long term advocate of including a LOTG test within the registration process each year .. though I'm totally understanding of why the FA might shy away from this in light of the necessary focus on boosting referee numbers and retention!
OK, perhaps saying 100% is pushing it a bit, but the fact remains that you need to be able to deal with any eventuality, you can't stop if you aren't sure to get your phone out and ask on a forum or even look up the LoTG app. Don't know if it is still the same, but that is why the exam for new L3s used to cover not just LoTG but also competition rules, contrib directives, and was extremely tricky.
Not knowing the laws is why referees often end up getting charged with failing to proficiently applying them and subsequently suspended. Referees getting a decision wrong is understandable as we only get one look, but a referee seeing something and then coming to the wrong conclusion because they don't understand the relevant law is pretty much unforgivable. The most common when it comes to the laws is goofing up penalty encroachment restarts, but then you have competition rule issues like playing extra time when you shoudn't, or vice versa, allowing too many or too few subs, getting repeated subs wrong, and so on.
ChasObserverRefDeveloper
Regular Contributor
I agree. From my experiences at workshops for promotion candidates over the last decade, the number failing the LOTG test remains worryingly high.
We know some candidates are going to be affected by exam phobias, but often basic knowledge is just not there.
This week's Dutch LOTG quiz, for example, would be seen as difficult by some, which is worrying.
You ended up making the point I was going to - competition rules are far more fiddly and inconsistent than the LOTG and are what I think of when people start talking about referee suspensions.
Penalty encroachment detail is a fair example of something where it's important to actually know the fiddly detail, but within the LOTG I would consider that the exception rather than the rule. Decent (ie not perfect) law knowledge, common sense and a willingness to engage and explain decisions will get you through almost any LOTG tests and real-world incidents. I'm not involved in training so will bow to you/Russell/Chas' experiences of fewer referees actually meeting those requirements in the tests, but I don't think that changes my overall point, at least while some % of incorrect answers is still considered acceptable.
This week's Dutch LOTG test is also an illustration of one of the challenges - the answer to Q4 is correct in Law, but in practice it's not applied to the letter and for a Sunday Morning parks game, it's irrelevant anyway.
I agree we all have a duty to know the Laws as well as we can, but with the best will in the world we can't expect everyone to remember every word and do that in a few seconds in the heat of the moment. On a recent training event, we did a practice quiz that had been recently given to SG2 referees on a training day. Granted it dug into some of the nooks and crannies of the Laws, but I know very few of that illustrious SG2 group got them all correct !
