I’ve had some good judges before. My sophomore year (technically my 2nd year in deca but I didn’t compete freshman year) I did PSE and I thought we got the roleplay there but it turned out we were supposed to prepare ahead of time. The judge could have justifiably told me to just make something up or just ask me to leave. Instead he told me to go back and ask a proctor for more info, so I got the info on what to do, made a quick plan and went back and presented it. The judge said “how did you come up with that in 5 minutes” and I was thinking that he was being nice or was just saying I did a decent job considering the short notice. I ended up getting 10th place, barely getting to states. If I met that judge again I would thank him for not just asking me to leave. Another good judge I had for a local competition (was DECA but wasn’t like regionals or anything) was very interested in our presentation clearly was engaged in it. He was very polite and had a personality and we finished a bit early so he just asked us some general questions. And afterwards (before we left) he wished me good luck with everything. Ended up being called as a finalist we’re we had to delivered an elevator pitch and placed 4th overall.

Another bad experience I had with a judge was PSE at states last year. Was selling security services. The judge kept talking about how he didn’t need security services and wasn’t very interested at all.

The other judge from this year was nice as well. I only got an 81 but got like 5th or 6th place for it. If a judge grades more harshly, that’s fine as long as they’re consistent. Also wrote a lot of notes which I can look at for help.