Yeah Heston, cut this guy some slack. We were all learning once, he may well have been shown how to use the thing properly, but it's easy to tie yourself in knots at first applying the wind the wrong way or whatever, even if you do understand the underlying principle. All he's looking to do is check he's getting the right answer and using the tool correctly, if he finds he is consistently wrong he will obviously go to his instructor for help, but if he's right then he doesn't need to waste his instructors time just for a confidence boost.
Fair enough, I was in a bad mood when I wrote that first reply, wasn't I? I stand by my underlying point though - its really important to understand what is going on with wind, drift angle, ground speed and so on. I'm afraid I've seen many folk come unstuck in their learning by rushing things (both in flying and elsewhere) - I meant to council against that.
(I once taught the interpretation of crystallographic xray diffraction patterns, which is really easy to do, and to picture what is going on, using a slide rule - (that shows you how long ago it was!). Well heeled students were beginning to use pocket caculators at this time and they couldn't grasp what was going on because although they could crunch the numbers, they couldn't visualise things in the way that those using the slide rule could. I think its the same with the whizz wheel vs electronics.)