Practical Component: Fitness Testing, Skill Proficiency, Game Rules and Officiating
The practical paper combines a fitness test battery, a skill test in one game, and rules and officiating questions. Marks are lost on procedure and terminology, not on effort.
Fitness testing
- AAHPER Youth Fitness Test items: pull-ups (boys) / flexed-arm hang (girls), sit-ups for 1 minute, shuttle run 4×10 m, 50-yard dash, 600-yard run–walk, standing broad jump.
- Harvard Step Test for cardiorespiratory endurance with the recovery-pulse index.
- Sit-and-reach for flexibility; BMI for body composition. Standard procedure: warm up, demonstrate, record on the correct score sheet, and compare with norms.
Skill proficiency
Tests are game-specific and timed or scored: volleyball service into a target zone, basketball dribble around cones then a lay-up, hockey dribble and pass, football dribble and shot, kabaddi escape from a hold. The examiner scores technique plus outcome.
Rules to know cold
- Volleyball - 6 players, rally point to 25 (15 in the fifth set), win by two, clockwise rotation on winning service.
- Basketball - 5 players, 24-second shot clock, 3-point arc, player leaves on 5 fouls.
- Football - 11 players, 90 minutes, offside, yellow card warning and red card dismissal.
- Hockey - 11 players; green card warning/temporary suspension, yellow card temporary suspension, red card permanent exclusion.
- Kabaddi - 7 players, raider must chant “kabaddi” continuously, 30-second raid limit, revival of one player per opponent out.
Officiating duties
Referee/umpire controls play and decisions; umpire or linesman judges lines; scorer keeps the score sheet; timekeeper manages time; table officials handle substitutions and fouls.
Worked example
In volleyball the receiving team wins a rally. Full-mark answer: the serving team does not rotate; the receiving team gains the serve and rotates clockwise, the player moving from position 2 to position 1 becoming the new server, and the score is called with the server’s score first.
Traps
- Rotating the wrong team after a rally.
- Calling a hockey yellow card a permanent exclusion.
- Recording a test score without the correct unit.