Thanks Lanun, perhaps coffee since I don't drink (shocking, I know, a teetotaller pilot?!)
I did not mean to imply that you want to be spoonfed, it's just that certain comments may be construed in that way.
Yes I was an MAS cadet, and yes, I did see the double standards being practised but it was more towards giving more flying slots to the MAS cadets although at that time we had only 2 batches of private students and 3 of MAS at any one time.
I strongly doubt that the CGI would not teach a certain topic on purpose. After all, it is in the syllabus isn't it? I cannot recall any part of my ground studies that was purposely not taught, except maybe the old irrelevant stuff like Loran-C.
Has Wicks retired? I always had a soft spot for him although everyone generally held that his best years were far behind him. You can't fault an old man for trying, really, even though his style of teaching tends to be much more university-oriented (as in he comes in and expects everyone to have read the topic already and so is puzzled why nobody knows what he's talking about).