It's mid-term exam time for the No. 1 men's gymnastics team as it prepares for its tri-meet with Temple and Navy this weekend at McGonigle Hall in Philadelphia. As the NCAAs approach, it's time for the Lions to get busy.

"Now we know where the real problems lie and it's time to make adjustments," all-arounder Wayne Cowden said. "It's time to do it and we can't let down."

The team has been busy in the gym working on adding difficulty to the routines and ironing out the breaks which have plagued it the last few weeks. The tri-meet this weekend marks the last Eastern foe in a dual meet and Coach Karl Schier said the schedule will increase in difficulty the next few weeks.

Following Temple, the Lions will travel to Ohio State and host Iowa. They then travel west to BYU and the Wooden Invitational at UCLA. The Wooden will feature No. 2 ranked UCLA. and preseason No. 1 Oklahoma.

"To do well against these teams we would like to be at improved sets already," Schier said. "OSU and Iowa are a big jump in the quality of our opponents and then we jump to the Wooden Invitational."

Scoring in gymnastics is based on difficulty, virtuosity, originality and cleanness. In terms of difficulty, moves are rated A to D, with D being the most difficult.

In dual-meet competition, a routine is required to have atleast two C moves. When NCAAs roll around, routines are required to have one D and three C's. Right now, many the team's routines include D moves which help boost a score by two-tenths of a point. Mark Sohn, who has scored three 10s this year, already includes up to five D moves in his routine.

"Right now I don't need anything yet," Sohn said. "I just want to concentrate on consistency and hitting my routine."

Sohn has been helping freshman Armando Gonzalez move from a B dismount to a C dismount on the pommel horse. Gonzalez struggled somewhat with the new move, but for the first attempt at it he was satisfied.

"This is the first time I've tried this and it feels weird," Gonzalez said. "But I get psyched learning new moves and adding difficulty. I just want to help the team as much as I can."

Gonzalez has also worked on his routine endurance and straightening out some of the problems he's faced so far. This is a goal common to the team.

Schier said the ideal goal for the team is to have 36 routines that are capable of scoring a 10.0. Although that goal is nearly impossible, he added, the pommel horse and rings have the potential to come close.

"These few weeks are important because we are working on what moves we can go to next and what changes can be made," Schier said. "This week is the most important, because we want to have these moves in so we can work on getting the routines down pat."

For the team this has included extra work on the vault and parallel bars, two of its weaker events. This also has meant extra work in the gym and more intense practices.

"We are working our butts off," Cowden said. "(The NCAAs) are getting closer and closer and we haven't ironed out our common mistakes yet. Our team has much more potential than we are doing, and it's time to live up to that."