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Things I wished I had known before sitting for my WSET Level 3 exam

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So, last Saturday I finally had the dreaded exam. If my calculations aren't wrong, I passed it. Maybe even with merit. But it was still a stressful experience, and there were a couple of things I wish I had known beforehand. I read quite a bit on preparing the exam and tips for it, and most of what I came across was helpful. There were just a couple of things that I didn't see covered, or even worse, one piece advice that was counterproductive, in my view. In the interest of helping other candidates, let me outline my own tips and suggestions:

• First of all, you'll need to study a lot. There's a metric ton of material to cover. I rarely took notes, and pretty much only needed to sit through a class paying some attention to the teacher to pass it, even in my university days. But Level 3 is different, you really need to prepare for it. Don't be fooled by the size of the book or the fact that it has pictures - you'll need to memorize about 80% of it (at least) to have a decent chance to pass, and it's packed densely. You need to be very familiar with all of the grape varieties and regions described in there. This is common advice, but it bears repeating, especially if you're like me.
• The advice about not consuming coffee, not wearing perfume and not smoking on the day of the exam, and rinsing your mouth with some neutral white wine before the tasting part, is all good and worth following. I'd add that it's critical to prevent getting any respiratory infections before the big day - be very careful in cold/cool environments, avoid sweating, and keep an eye on AC. You really don't want to have a runny nose when being tested. It could shoot the tasting part to hell for you and leave you without even a fighting chance. If this happens to you... fib. Lie through your teeth. There's no penalty for that. Try to guess what the wines are based on their color and whatever limited inputs your nose and palate give you. Almost all whites have lemon notes. Most reds have yoghurt and oak-related notes. Deeper-colored whites tend to be oaked and/or oxidized, and usually aren't young. Older whites overwhelmingly show honey notes. Garnet reds are usually evolving, purples are pretty much always young, and tawnies are evolved. If you're lucky, you can scrounge enough points to pass.
• An alternative, or addition, to the above is to have some solid antiallergic medicine on hand. Cetirizine is good for me, especially because it doesn't make me drowsy. I take cetirizine + pseudoephedrine tablets and they do wonders for my nose. Start experimenting with these some weeks before the exam, especially if you rarely or never take antihistamines.
• If you truly can't make head or tails of the wines you're tasting, there are always some tricks you can employ. In my case, the white was served too cold, to the point that it was hiding the aromas. In that case, warm the glass up between your hands. Also, when there's only a small volume of wine left in the glass, any tertiary or secondary aromas will dominate; you can go back to either wine later, and check for any aromas or character you might've missed. This is a great way to characterize whites, especially. Also, if you taste the white after the red, its sweetness will be much easier to measure (as long as it's a dry red, and the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of that being the case). An added benefit is that tasting a white, especially if it's young and/or simple, will "reset" your palate, in case it's taken a beating from a highly tannic red.
• I often read, and heard from one of our instructors, that it's good to complete the multiple-choice part in around half an hour. I did that, and I regret it. That part of the exam is trivially easy, and I could've completed it in 15 minutes. The extra time would've helped me immensely in the written part, which I finished by the skin of my teeth. If you're a slow and messy writer, like me, you'll need every last second of those scant two hours for the written answers. Remember that you need to write by hand, and WSET aren't generous with the space allocated to most questions - you'll not only need to know the subject well, but also be able to craft straightforward, yet thorough, answers that are both readable and fit in the rectangle. This can be more challenging than the material itself. So, if you have a good grasp of the course's contents, breeze through the multiple-choice part as quickly as you can while also making sure you're not making dumb mistakes (like shifting all of your answers by one row, and thus getting most of them wrong).
• Before answering the written questions, take a look at them, and check which ones could you answer most easily, and which ones give the most marks. Make sure that you account for all pages - a classmate shrieked when there were only a couple of minutes left, and she realized that she had left a whole page unanswered. It was too late by then. So, take a couple of minutes to scan the whole written exam before answering it, and keep in mind how much of it you have left as the time begins to run out.
• This is only my opinion, but I see only two viable strategies for the written part, and completing it in order, front to back, ain't one of them. You either start by completing the meaty answers that give the most marks, or you attack the easiest ones first. I did the latter, but would choose the former if I had to sit through the exam again. The 1 and 2 mark answers end up comprising an important percentage of the score, but they can be dispatched in under ten minutes if you know what you're doing... or have to fib. Remember, you don't get penalized for it, so if you really don't know an answer, or have only a vague idea, bullshit your way through. Don't give up! Anyway, I feel like the optimal strategy is to secure as many marks on the big answers first, and then fill in the small blanks. I'm sure I f****d up a part worth 6 marks because I left it for last, and then had to rush it. You'll need a disproportionally longer amount of time for the 6+ mark answers than for the rest. Dedicate them as much of your attention as possible. Say, if the test has one question worth 10, two worth 8, and three worth 6, you have 44 points in there. You can use an hour filling them up, and then 20 minutes completing the rest. Alternatively, you can focus on the shorter ones; Saturday's exam had over 50 points in answers worth 1, 2, 3 and 4 marks, almost enough to pass the exam on their own without touching the longer stuff. But you need to answer them perfectly, and that can be more challenging than it seems. 4-mark questions are especially tricky, and between the nerves and the time constraints it's easy to miss some points for them.
• Practice your handwriting! I didn't do this properly beforehand, and I regret it. Get a feel for how much time it'll take you to properly finish written questions, especially the chunky ones. Time yourself and do your best to produce concise, readable answers. If you're taking too long, work faster. The exam is the worst possible place to have this realization - don't be like me.
• Finally, keep in mind that most of the questions will focus on processes, not specific knowledge. If you show up knowing all of the maps like the back of your hand and with an encyclopedic knowledge of grape varieties, but without a solid grasp of both viticultural and winemaking practices and outcomes, you'll be SOL. You won't pass. It's far more vital to know what's usually done with aromatic vs. neutral white grapes, than it is to remember all of the communes and villages in Burgundy and Bordeaux, for example.

Top Comment: I think most WSET 3 advice could be summed up as this: the multiple choice is testing knowledge, short answer is testing understanding and an ability to communicate it, the practical tasting is testing an ability to analyze the components of a wine. There are too many people that get into the weeds trying to identify Zweigelt blind or writing mock short answers on Vin Jaune. I was getting over a cold and drank plenty of coffee, passed with distinction but I had good guidance and focused on nailing structure and somewhat phoning in aromatics based on the wine style, which is an easy area of the practical to breeze through.

Forum: r/wine

Seriously thinking about taking WSET 3 just for fun – is it worth it?

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I'm a software engineer so my work has nothing to do with wines, I'm just in this world as a hobbyist and I've been eager to learn more for a while.

I have the chance to skip WSET 2 and enroll in WSET 3 directly with some friends which I'd like very much to do. I reckon this is not the usual path, but I believe have the time and the drive to make it work even if challenging.

I've check several online WSET 2 exams and I was able to successfully answer most of the questions (last test I did 80%), but I would spend some time reviewing Level 2 content before starting Level 3 anyway.

Now, my question is: is the WSET 3 worth the price for an amateur – that is, just for the sake of learning, not to pursue any career? Should I put my money somewhere else? Should I stick to WSET 2 as this would be enough given my situation?

I know there have been may questions around WSET but couldn't find any about a similar situation, sorry if this pops up often!

Top Comment: As my wine friends told me when I was pondering the exact same question, “do it; even if you fail, the amount you’ll learn and the number of wines you’ll get to taste will be worth it.”

Forum: r/wine

WSET Level 3

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Hello everyone. I am close to starting my WSET Level 3, I am sure a lot of people on this thread have achieved this level of education in wine, any studying/tasting tips?

All help is welcome

Top Comment: I've definitely spent way too much time on prepping my exam. So take things with a grain of salt. You can probably do less than I did and still pass. Are you doing it online? Tasting with a teacher in class? If it's the last, I'd not worry about tasting at all. Tasting is relatively easy compared to theory. You'll taste about ~60 wines and if the teacher is good, they will calibrate your palette enough so you can pass it. Remember, your teacher is also the person that's correcting your tasting exam. Instead make sure to read the book, multiple times. Create flashcards to remember things like "Two white only AOCs where Viognier is used in N. Rhône". Hint: Condrieu and Chateau Grillet. You'll nail the multiple choice questions easily if you do this. The real hard part are the open ended questions. They require a lot of detail to score the points. You'll be required to describe why Riesling in Mosel taste a certain way. Identify why this particular Riesling is pricey (It's a GG, from steep slopes so makes harvesting difficult etc..). And then draw the pyramid, describe each wine style, sugar level etc.. Yes it's a lot. But if you manage to do this, you'll score a distinction. If you really want to be prepared in advance. I think Wine with Jimmy is 100% worth the money. Loads of insightful videos, flashcards and mock exams. He especially helps you answer the open ended questions in a systematic way. You can get a feel of his teaching style on YouTube for free. Good luck! WSET 3 is super rewarding :)

Forum: r/wine

I am playing blood and wine and won all 3 events in the tournament and still lost. Is this a glitch? : witcher

Main Post: I am playing blood and wine and won all 3 events in the tournament and still lost. Is this a glitch? : witcher

Forum: r/witcher

TSW 3 keeps crashing at startup.

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I "obtained" a copy of the game Train Sim World 3. I know for a fact that the files are fine and that I am the problem. I'm trying to run it using Lutris and Wine, but the game shows the loading screen and then crashes. Here are the logs:

I'm using the wine version: Ubuntu 6.0.3 repack 1

How can I fix this and what steps can I take to find a solution in the future?

Top Comment:

Try a newer Wine, or install Lutris, and maybe see if another runner works better.

Forum: r/wine_gaming

All Chapter 3 The New West Awaken Wine Worm Locations Black Myth Wukong

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You can see All Chapter 3 The New West Awaken Wine Worm Locations Black Myth Wukong following this video guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHutGFMAS1M

Top Comment: You can see All Chapter 3 The New West Awaken Wine Worm Locations Black Myth Wukong following this video guide...

Forum: r/YoutubeGameGuides

[deleted by user]

Main Post: [deleted by user]

Top Comment: I’m in the military(US), I have plenty of money I guess they really did stop making the Dodge Challenger

Forum: r/wine

Missed the wine scene: Can you still romance Shadowheart?

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I'm in act 2--maybe halfway through it. I was wondering if Shadowheart is still possible to be romanced with good relations and have given her the night orchid. I had a fling with Lae'zel which I broke off and flirty with Karlach but have yet to do the romance scene after her heart has been cooled.

I wonder if I'm already locked off from pursuing Shadowheart, and I'm preventing myself from going with Karlach's romance by waiting for nothing.

Also: Are opportunities for romantic nights random? I had a save where I saw Karlach's romance scene in the camp, but I didn't continue the save for the following morning. I instead opted to not speak with her and slept. The following long rests don't have her romance dialogue anymore.

Top Comment: 60 hours in and I’m just finding out about a scene I missed 2 acts ago and that’s why all my presents and gestures have not progressed anywhere. That’s crazy

Forum: r/BaldursGate3

Debugger Found Error in Wine 10.3 - Unable to Run MT5 on Linux

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I'm encountering a persistent "a debugger has been found on your system, unload it from memory and restart your program" error while trying to run MetaTrader 5 using Wine on Arch Linux.

Has anyone faced this before or have any suggestions on how to resolve it? Any help would be appreciated!

update: I used Bottles instead and it works perfectly.

Top Comment: Hi. I had same problem, and after finding solution, I come here to tell you how did I make it. And I am happy to share with you. This is how I made it work : I installed 'bottles' app from flatpak. The flatpak insiste users to install and use bottles through flatpak to run always the apps in sandbox. after installing bottle I run MT5 in bottle without problem. EDIT: the name is bottles and read about it in archwiki here https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bottles

Forum: r/winehq

Baldur's Gate 3 Throwing Wine Error with Proton

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Hi all! I'm trying to get BG3 to run on my Ubuntu machine and am seeing the following errors:

err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded.

err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow L"The explorer process failed to start."

err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded.

err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow L"The explorer process failed to start."

err:eventlog:ReportEventW L"Application: LariLauncher.exe\nCoreCLR Version: 6.0.1122.52304\n.NET Version: 6.0.11\nDescription: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.\nException Info: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (0x80004005): Success.\r\n at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper..ctor(Int32 classStyle, I"...

err:xrandr:xrandr14_get_adapters Failed to get adapters

If anyone has any experience with any of these I would appreciate any help you can offer!

Thanks and have a great day!

Top Comment:

change path of the executable to baldurs gate 3/bin/bg3.exe instead of LauriLauncher.exe edit: maybe check if nvidia or intel graphics driver is installed

Forum: r/wine_gaming