Capt Jay Jay,
In response to your above reply… I would like to state a few things. The aviation paper… was not difficult… the questions regarding principle of flight… were not a problem in the slightest. As for having interest in ATC… I would say I have a very strong interest which was rubbed off from a very young age from my Grandfather who was an ATC and also from my friends who went on to become pilots or winch men. So the interest has always been there from my first visit to Leuchars Air Show when I was 7 and my first visit to an Aerodrome in my early teens.
As for the maths… I have good mathematical grades don’t get me wrong but any sort of mathematics I have been used to in the last few years is that of working with financial figures like I said. As the saying goes… you lose what you don’t use. I was just merely indicating that given a bit of notice I would have spent an hour or two doing some maths and would have had it all fresh in my memory hence why they give out practice material as it’s there to help you freshen your memory on things. I’m also sure that I would not have been the only person there that would have had the same thing considering the average age in the room was about 26 meaning people could have been out of education for up to ten years and may have never needed to use any sort of Maths since.
I don’t think it is very nice to classify your grade as a “lowly B grade” as its still accepted and so is a C which indicates that NATS finds that level acceptable.
If I wasn’t capable of the job I would not have made it to the third stage and be told I was capable of the course work but it was a bit risky spending 750K for my training for me to run off to RAF if I don’t like it as I had met the grades for most trades in RAF and they knew it was an option for me.
Basically… the message I put was me saying how the practice papers did not correspond with the tests to come up as they were suited for the previous layout and if anyone that has attended lately felt that there was a lack of relationship between the two. My department would never think of issuing its students module booklets and teach them things that have nothing to do with their module tests (mind it has happened at some institutions before!). I just feel that when you only get 3 chances and its plenty of people’s dreams that it can be rather miss guiding.
I know the reply was rather long winded but had to be as your reply was very on-sided and very criticising (not the constructive type). Little bit less one sided criticism doesn’t go a miss.
But I do agree about it should have been easy to do the Maths paper.
P.S. Your 747 is flying a little slow there ;P !