Women Score inflation?

[cbifoja]

I've been reading the thread/debate about regions and nationals and scores. One thing that caught my eye was someone mentioning how certain regions/states may score harder/easier than others. After a couple of days of percolating, I decided to look at the scores at a session of our state meet.

Now this was for L7 since it was my DD's state meet and I only looked at that youngest age division. So all of my numbers are coming from there.

You always hear about grade inflation and how now a B is average rather than a C and an A is expected for work that is at least competent. So I found myself wondering if some states do the same for scores.

We don't live in a strong gymnastics state. I think we are the bastard child of our region and our region is one of the more competitive ones. However, in my DD's age division, there were a total of 52 scores given across all four events. Of those scores, only 6 scores weren't in the 9s! That means that almost 90% of all scores given were 9.0 or better.

That seems a bit suspect to me. There were no 8s given on vault or floor. Only one bar routine earned less than a 9. The others were on beam and I assume as a result of falls. Does this seem inflated or is this what you would expect at a state meet, even a weak state? I mean, we aren't Texas for crying out loud!

 

[MaryA]

That is surprising. I usually see a pretty wide range of scores at States, including girls who don't even get the qualifying score for States at States. There are always going to be falls and girls who just didn't bring their "A" game that day.

 

[htimcj]

That is intersting. I have never really looked before so I don't know if that is normal or not.

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

Our States looked to be scored similarly to our regular season, perhaps a bit generous but still saw mostly eights, with some sevens and some nines. But it looked like the vast majority of scores were in the mid-high 8's. I'd say on average, for our girls, States scored 0.3-0.5 higher than normal season.

Throughout the season we saw mostly 8's, it was the rare routine that scored anything over 9 (and that went for all teams, not just us... We have some pretty amazing little girls on our team). Basically, if you scored a 9 you knew you earned it, lol!!

 

[wallinbl]

When I'm curious about this, I go look at the scores for those girls when they traveled out of state to meets. In some cases, it's evident that one state is more lenient than others with scores. In other cases, it's mostly a wash.

Our state scores well in looking at score lists, but those girls also score well at regionals and nationals. A few states in our region puts up big scores at their meets, but those girls don't score nearly as well at regionals or nationals.

It's hard to tell just looking at one girl, because anyone can have a good or bad day, but if you look at a number of them, you can see some trends.

 

[LizzieLac]

I have always found the state meets I attended to be scored a bit tough. You would see a lot of 7s and 8s (heck even 6s) without an inkling why.

When I get a chance I may do a little analysis. Interesting question, thanks for bringing it up!

 

[ollieblueeyes]

I had been warned that states are tougher in the scoring.

 

[profmom]

Ho ho ho! According to mymeetscores, the lowest score awarded to any L7 competitor at DD's state meet who competed all four events was below a 30 AA. A number of girls posted AAs below 32. There were 5s on bars and 6s on beam.

 

[cbifoja]

I looked at the other age divisions.

In the middle group, 70% of the scores were in the 9s. Floor still had only 9s.

In the oldest group, only 50% of the scores were in the 9s.

The vault judges gave a total of 4 scores below 9 for the entire L7 group for that events. The same can be said for the floor judge.

It always seems like floor scores are high everywhere though. It seems, and this is totally unscientific and antecdotal, that a score that wins bars won't even place floor.

 

[cbifoja]

Ho ho ho! According to mymeetscores, the lowest score awarded to any L7 competitor at DD's state meet who competed all four events was below a 30 AA. A number of girls posted AAs below 32. There were 5s on bars and 6s on beam.

Our lowest AA was a little over 31 while the highest was over 38.5. There were only two 6s and seven 7s.

 

[happychaos]

I've been reading the thread/debate about regions and nationals and scores. One thing that caught my eye was someone mentioning how certain regions/states may score harder/easier than others. After a couple of days of percolating, I decided to look at the scores at a session of our state meet.

Now this was for L7 since it was my DD's state meet and I only looked at that youngest age division. So all of my numbers are coming from there.

You always hear about grade inflation and how now a B is average rather than a C and an A is expected for work that is at least competent. So I found myself wondering if some states do the same for scores.

We don't live in a strong gymnastics state. I think we are the bastard child of our region and our region is one of the more competitive ones. However, in my DD's age division, there were a total of 52 scores given across all four events. Of those scores, only 6 scores weren't in the 9s! That means that almost 90% of all scores given were 9.0 or better.

That seems a bit suspect to me. There were no 8s given on vault or floor. Only one bar routine earned less than a 9. The others were on beam and I assume as a result of falls. Does this seem inflated or is this what you would expect at a state meet, even a weak state? I mean, we aren't Texas for crying out loud!

Just checked out our state scores. The youngest group of L7's had about 1/3 scores under 9.0, and the 2nds youngest L7 group had about 1/4 under 9.0.

 

[profmom]

Our floor scores weren't that far out of line with bars scores at the top. Vault was tightly compressed though -- high was around a 9.5 and change and low was just above an 8. Much more spread on the other events.

 

[gymdog]

Is there score inflation? Yes. Starting throughout the 90s and on, JO scores have crept up as the average level and age of entry crept down. In the 70s and 80s kids competed around age 10 and would legitimately receive scores of 2. Now they generally don't go lower than 4. Don't get me wrong, even in the 90s, compulsory wasn't what it is today. I doubt there was one single child in my state that performed with quality of the best kids today, because that level of mastery simply wasn't the focus back then. But 9s were pretty rare, even for relatively decent routines. I can remember winning events with high 8s and AAs with 35s. Nowadays it seems any moderately successful performance scores a 9.05. We never give the rainbow ribbons out any more, or even green, not sure why those even exist anymore.

 

[CoachTodd]

Our state tends to be pretty brutal on scores. (sometimes depending on what gym you are from). Most of our kids' scores go up when they leave the state.

 

[profmom]

I wonder if it's changed as much for boys, obviously with scaling to account for the different scoring systems over the years? I've certainly seen some low scores this year, with floor and pommel going down into the 5s and even 4s occasionally. (For those unfamiliar with MAG scoring in JO, for compulsories, a base routine is scored out of 10.0, but the boys can get bonuses for doing harder skills well, and likewise in optionals, they would ordinarily start with a base D score that brings the maximum score over 10.0.)

 

[gracyomalley]

I do suspect there are differences between states/regions. I will say that at both our state meet, and most of the meets DD went to as a L7 (first year youngest age group, second year next to youngest) vault scores were mostly high 8s and up with the rare exception of the kid who still has bent arms on FHS, etc, and floor scores mostly 9 and up....generally everyone can do the tumbling, it the form on floor that stood out as less solid in the girls getting below 9s....so I do think that's part of L7 in general. (at least in our and neighboring regions). Bars, however, are rarely given 9s and up here - so that is definitely a regional difference - as I would argue that its unlikely our girls are similarly"good" on the other events but the whole state that much worse on bars....DD generally placed in top 5 or so with 8.9-9.2 on bars....whether the pool be 10 or 20 in her age group, to give perspective.

Compared to boys - I would say our state meet is scored similarly to the season meets (most of the team gets scores like what they've been getting...), but at boys state they score TOUGH!!! and even harder at boys regionals - each year something like 15-35% of boys who met the qualifying score to get to regionals score under that score AT regionals....on the other hand our L8 girls who went to regionals got scores very similar to what they got at other meets - so at least WITHIN our region scores are relatively even...

I wouldn't expect a girl who qualifies for state to have any events they can't get at least a 7 in - at least by optional levels....so not having scores lower than that makes sense....plus most gyms wouldn't compete a kid at a level they can't get to a low 7 in each event - I suspect scores consistently below that would indicate a safety issue or a routine so far below competition standards that the kid just doesn't belong there - now everyone has their "really bad day" - but the longer a kid trains/competes the less likely those days lead to scores significantly below that kid's baseline...


I have no idea how my kids and their teammates would score in a more competitve region- I suspect similarly but with lots more kids scoring higher - due to the volume effect and the more opportunities (TOPS, more hours offered, more trained/experienced coaches, a team ethic more oriented to working your hardest, etc) that are available in those regions...

 

[cbifoja]

Interesting thoughts about not being able to score at least a 7. One of our girls was one of the 6s. She fell twice on beam and then just melted down and couldn't hit anything....even things she was consistently hitting all year long. She was a first year optional but one who was on at least her 5th year of competition.

 

[JessLW]

Is there score inflation? Yes. Starting throughout the 90s and on, JO scores have crept up as the average level and age of entry crept down. In the 70s and 80s kids competed around age 10 and would legitimately receive scores of 2. Now they generally don't go lower than 4. Don't get me wrong, even in the 90s, compulsory wasn't what it is today. I doubt there was one single child in my state that performed with quality of the best kids today, because that level of mastery simply wasn't the focus back then. But 9s were pretty rare, even for relatively decent routines. I can remember winning events with high 8s and AAs with 35s. Nowadays it seems any moderately successful performance scores a 9.05. We never give the rainbow ribbons out any more, or even green, not sure why those even exist anymore.

This is definitely true. I remember competing compulsories in the early 90s, and I won a couple of events at States with scores in the 8s. You would see lots of 6s and 7s and 8s, but 9s were pretty rare.

 

[gracyomalley]

Interesting thoughts about not being able to score at least a 7. One of our girls was one of the 6s. She fell twice on beam and then just melted down and couldn't hit anything....even things she was consistently hitting all year long. She was a first year optional but one who was on at least her 5th year of competition.

Sounds like my example of a "really bad day" - but I will repeat that its rare at this level to not be able to pull it together enough for a 7....of course, hormones do kick in too!