In the RNLI our station gets a decent cross section of educational life.. all volunteers, so you do get natural enthusiaism..and pretty much all blokes so fairly army standard.
the difference is of course the age range, with long servers at 30 yrs of age and beginners of 45 plus.
any way there is plenty of maths to get through and not everyone enjoys it,, my favourite is the radar course,, after hours and hours of training. you get in the boat,, it gets foggy. your rings and lines are set up.. you adjust for clutter and rain,, blah blah etc etc
then after 5 minutes you stick it on heads up and steer around the blibs and blobs... that's 5 o levels worth