For those experienced pilot / instructors commenting on this thread, I'd advise you to save your breath.
The current crop of students have in most cases been utterly poisoned by the useless way that the EASA exams are organised (from syllabus to training requirement to exam).
They simply will not listen to anything that interferes with their opinion that their groundschool training is a waste of time. Worse than that, you can expect to be on the receiving end of abuse for 'deliberately trying to waste their time'. They just don't have the maturity or experience to know any better.
Probably explains why so many of them arrive in the sim knowing SWEET F*** ALL and my time is spent doing remedial groundschool and / or remedial basic instrument flying instruction. And even when I've re-taught them some basic thing (*e.g. given below) they still have the nerve to pitch up here and restate the fact that the groundschool is irrelevant.
EXAMPLE: Conducting an airline assessment. Location on EFIS of IAS, TAS and GS carefully and very specifically covered in briefing. Candidate asked to calculate ETA to a VORDME with nice round numbers. ,e.g. GS 300 kts, range 30 DME. 75% of candidates use IAS instead of GS.
Just think about what a staggering display of ineptitude this is.
But... Oh NO, groundschool is a waste of time.
I don;t trust most of these youngsters to sit the right way round on a toilet, let alone fly an aeroplane.
And I lay the blame for this current disgraceful state of affairs firmly at the feet of EASA.