Hi RopeyPilot,
Agreed with what you say in regards to the FAA designated examiners.
They are human after all and want to see you pass.
For instance the only thing I stumbled upon was the minimum altitudes that are within brackets on the approach charts. He said we would come back to that later...
Whilst we were going through questions on the low altitude en-route charts he asked me what one of the lines meant and I replied "military training route".
Examiner: "Ah, so going back to the approach chart, what does this figure within brackets indicate?".
Me: "Oh I got it, its the military minimum descent altitude / decision altitude (as applicable)".
Examiner: "Yes, thats right".
However that was the only question I stumbled upon in my FAA IR oral if I were to stumble across many more then I probably would have failed but in the end the rest of the oral went swimmingly well.
Learning the questions for the FAA Written test does not get you through the FAA IR Oral, you have to know the syllabus inside and out.
The same goes for every other FAA Oral exam. Be it for the PPL, CPL, ATP, etc.
Best wishes,
Charlie Zulu.