Whenever new questions are introduced they should be fed into the exams gradually to enable schools and students to aclimatise themselves to any new study areas or change of emphasis. If a student finds himself/herself faced with a large number of new questions focusing on new study material or changed study emphasis, he/she will obviously feel cheated.
But we must also resist the temptation of being too easily offended. The fire extinguisher question in this thread is actually quite reasonable it refers to a hand held extinguisher in a cabin, so we can reasonably conclude that it is a small halon or water extinguisher.
If we are directly above the fire or too close to the base we will probably get burned.
If we are 5 metres from the fire the extinguisher will not reach it. So the only valid option is 1.5 to 2.5 metres. 1 to 1.5 metres would be a better option but that is not available.
In effect the question is testing whether the candidate knows the following (common sense) requirements when fighting a fire.
1. Stand in a safe place.
2. Use the extinguisher effectively.
I would argue that no student should go anywhere near an aircraft without knowing these two requirements.
Any student who had received instruction on the basics of fire fighting should be able to answer the question. But any student who had simply memorised a lot of numbers about how many extinguishers are required for various numbers of seats would not be able to answer it.
Last edited by keith williams; 13th Feb 2016 at 15:11.