| General appearance (5 marks) | |
| Eye, skin, slime, gills, belly flaps, blood, muscle along the backbone | |
| - Eyes perfectly fresh, convex black pupil, bright red gills, no bacterial slime, no bleaching | 5 |
| - Eyes slightly sunken, grey pupil, some discoloration of gills and some mucus, outer slime opaque and somewhat milky | 3 |
| - Eyes sunken, milky white pupil, thick knotted outer slime with some bacterial discoloration | 2 |
| - Eyes with a completely sunken pupils; gills showing bleaching or complete discoloration and covered with thick mucus | 0 |
| Odors (5 marks) | |
| Gills, guts, body cavity, muscle | |
| - Fresh sea weedy odors | 5 |
| - Loss of fresh sea weed odors, shellfish odors | 4 |
| - Slight musty odors | 3 |
| - Strong ammoniacal and sulphide odors | 2 |
| - Indole, fecal, nauseating, putrid odors | 0 |
| Texture (5 marks) | |
| Rigor mortis, fingerprints, muscle, belly flaps | |
| - Firm, elastic to the finger touch | 5 |
| - Softening of the flesh, some grittiness | 3 |
| - Softer flesh, definite grittiness and scale easily rubbed off the skin | 2 |
| - Very soft and flabby, retains the finger indentations, grittiness quite marked | 1 |
| Total score | |