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  • Writer's pictureSusan R Lin

Archives: Tackling the Stage 2 Masters of Wine Exam

Updated: Jan 30, 2021

In my final post from my Blogger archives, I share my experiences and perspectives on this part of my journey in the Masters of Wine study program. Again, I hope this will be useful to prospective students and interesting for the curious. Thank you for being with me!


Passing the MW Exam: Lessons Learned (September 2019)

Celebrating passing the MW exam!
Celebrating passing the MW exam!

Two years ago, I passed the Stage 1 exam of the Masters of Wine study program. That meant I would be eligible to sit the Stage 2 full MW exam the following year. (See my previous post for more on what Stage 2 entails.) The significant increase in exam length, the heightened bar to pass, and what preparing for this stage of the exam entailed proved infinitely more challenging than I had anticipated.


Last year, I took the weeklong exam and fell flat on my face! Imagine the cartoon two-ton weight crashing down on me. Not only did I not pass, my grades for the Practical (tasting papers) portion were downright ugly. I was at a loss; I’d given it my all and felt gassed out. What else could I do? I was down and out.


It turns out that not passing the MW exam the first time around was the kick in the rear I needed to really get my act together. My experience showed me how difficult it is to actually make it through the exam without flaming out: The exam itself is a marathon. The long days of intense concentration with tasting in the mornings and theory in the afternoons, day after day, was draining and headache-inducing. Sleep did not come easily at night, if at all. Nothing — not even all the mock tasting exams I had sat nearly every Sunday with my tasting study group — could have prepared me for what the actual exam would be like.


I was also shocked by how high the bar is for not only the breadth of knowledge required, but the depth of understanding across all aspects of the industry: all disciplines, markets, categories, and so on. Granted, I knew that the bar was extremely high — otherwise there would be more MWs in the world — but the bar was far higher than I'd anticipated. It was a rude awakening.


I won’t lie; I was in pain for good while after receiving my dismal results following the agonizing three-month long wait. I asked myself if this was the right path for me.


Eventually I decided that I had to try again. I knew that in doing so, I would learn much more about the fascinating world of wine. That is the reason why I applied for the program in the first place: to keep learning. And, real learning does not come easily.


I think it's true that the MW study program is not for everyone. And that is a good thing! There is absolutely no need to suffer pointlessly if it is not right for you. Everyone is unique, and there are happily many ways to grow and to take flight in life.


The first thing I had to come to grips with was that what I had done before had not worked for me, and I had to figure out how to approach my studies anew. What truly impressed this upon me was a quote by the popular painter Bob Ross, from a book I happened upon not long after I received my exam results:


“If it’s not what you want, stop and change it. Don’t just keep going and expect it to get better.”


These wise words eventually helped me enter a mindset where I realized I needed to change my study and practice strategy.


I could never have imagined how much I could learn when I began to apply myself again. Re-approaching my study methodology entailed a long process of repeated trial and error with the trying of many different styles of study, most of which did not work for me. Each time I forced myself to change my approach it was painful, like shedding one’s skin.


After having received some brutal feedback on practice theory essays only one month before the exam this year, I went into a few days of despair that was frightening. I am normally a very optimistic person, very glass half-full in my outlook. But at this point, I felt pretty crushed. Less than one month remained before showtime. I thought, “If I am doing so poorly now, why am I even trying? Why am I even doing this?” However, I’d already committed to (and, more to the point, paid for) the exam, so come hell or high water, I was going to sit the exam and give it my best.


After several days of feeling dismally low, I wrenched out my negative thoughts and redirected them into energy towards gleaning what I could use from the tough feedback to help me improve. Once I defined and reframed the feedback in a way that felt good and actionable to me, I decided to own that feedback and I applied myself full-bore right up to the exam … and through the exam. I told myself to make every moment count, and to make every sentence I wrote count.


Beethoven Emperor Piano Concerto No. 5
Phone screenshot while walking to Day 1 of the exam

One aspect that was important to my psyche going into the exam this time was listening to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “The Emperor”, 3rd Movement (scroll to 29:15 for Yundi Li's spectacular performance of the 3rd Movement), every morning as I walked the 15 minutes from my hotel to the exam site. The music is so joyous and triumphant. It was my “victory” music. If Beethoven could make such incredible music despite all that he suffered -- he was purportedly quite deaf by the time he composed this concerto -- then I could at least make it through a weeklong wine exam, even if I was only a fraction as talented as he.


After all was said and done and everything was out of my hands, I knew I had done better than the year before. I felt better about my performance. But would it be good enough? I told myself that I had done the best I could, and the extent to which I had learned in the last 8-10 months was worth a great deal. At least that is what I told myself, as a sort of comfort. Of course I wanted to pass! I was hoping to pass Theory this time. I was pretty sure I had shot my chances of passing the tasting portion due to my feeling quite shaky on the very first tasting paper, the white wine paper (“Paper 1” as it is known).


As the day of results notifications approached nearly three months after the exam, I asked myself the dreaded question: what if I had failed both parts of the exam, all over again? I knew this kind of result would inevitably throw me into an existential crisis. (Let’s face it, when you put so much of your life force into something, the results matter deeply!)


I eventually came to the conclusion that if I had failed everything again, I would be all right with taking a break to seriously reconsider whether this program was the right path for me. I made an uneasy peace with myself, still remaining in dread of the impending results.


The night before Labor Day, I lay awake in dread and anxiety. I willed myself to breathe, and I resolutely did not reach for my phone. (I had been told that in previous years if a student passed one or both parts of the exam, they received a call from the Institute in London.) I dozed fitfully until the sky turned light. Finally I took a deep breath and fetched my phone. There was a text from a study mate; the results had indeed come in. How did you do? he asked. I saw I had no missed calls. I had an email notification from the Institute titled “MW Exam Results”.


My heart dropped into my stomach. There was no call, just the email. I assumed I had failed everything all over again. Still, my fingers tapped into the notification, and the email opened.


“Dear Susan Lin,

2019 Masters of Wine examination results

[Candidate number …] Thank you for sitting the 2019 Masters of Wine examination.”


My eyes glazed over. This looked exactly like the email I had received last year. I scanned for my grades; if you do not pass, they indicate your grades so you can see for which topics or sections your performance was the most painfully inadequate.


Then I read, “I am delighted to report …”


Wait. What?


“I am delighted to report that you have passed both the practical and theory elements of the examination.”


I rubbed my eyes and enlarged the text, just to make sure I hadn’t misread the message. I clapped both hands over my mouth and made a squeaky noise. I think I began hyperventilating.


But wait; I had not received a call from the Institute! What if this was a mistake? If so, it would be a truly cruel joke, indeed.


I emailed the Institute’s North American administrator, Nancy, the incredibly sweet, tireless supporter of us students. I felt terrible for bothering her on Labor Day, but I had to know: Was it a mistake?


About half an hour later, my phone rang. It was Nancy. She said she wasn’t sure what the Institute’s policy was on calls are due to new leadership, but, “This is your call! Not a mistake! You did it!”


I could hardly believe it. It was so amazing to hear the good news straight from Nancy, as she was one of the first people I had met once I was accepted into the study program. I am so appreciative that she called me.


YAY
Wearing my "yay" pony shirt, because, YAY!

As you can imagine, I am extremely happy that I didn’t have to face the existential crisis I had been dreading. I am now on to the third and final stage of the program: the Research Paper. (It has been interesting having to tell people that I am not done yet!)


While I quickly went from complete shock to euphoria to relief, I am now stressing out about my research topic. Of course, I am thrilled to have reached the point of even thinking seriously about conducting research! The path to Master of Wine is a deeply personal voyage. I look forward to what I can learn and contribute to the community during Stage 3 of my journey.


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