Fun with Students

[Big Pistons Forever]

Further to my did in the Supply thread, my summer at the Navy’s Navigation school included teaching an advanced navigation course. I had 4 students and they were all excellent, but definitely not riven with self doubt. They started getting a bit stroppy so I decided it was time to take them down a notch or two.

We had weekly 25 question progress test which were multiple choice with a bubble test sheet. They could then be easily marked with a master cover sheet with holes that lined up with the correct bubbles.

I rewrote the next weeks test so that “B” was the correct answer for every question. It was very entertaining watching the students start to doubt themselves as the number of B’s started to accumulate.

After that the students were a touch more respectful towards their instructor.

[langleybaston]

RAF Finningley Nav. School c. 1974, mid morning coffee break, where students and instructors mingled.
One instructor, a 'determined-to-remain just a Flying Officer', was heard to remark that the RAF was accepting outed homosexuals and had decided they would all best be in one unit.

"Where would that be?" asked an innocent.
"Here darling/ ducky/ dear, right here at Finningley" and stroked the stude's upper thigh.
Small hole in ceiling as stude disappeared upwards.
Sorry if I have told it before, and before, and before.

[Wensleydale]

Further to my did in the Supply thread, my summer at the Navy’s Navigation school included teaching an advanced navigation course. I had 4 students and they were all excellent, but definitely not riven with self doubt. They started getting a bit stroppy so I decided it was time to take them down a notch or two.

We had weekly 25 question progress test which were multiple choice with a bubble test sheet. They could then be easily marked with a master cover sheet with holes that lined up with the correct bubbles.

I rewrote the next weeks test so that “B” was the correct answer for every question. It was very entertaining watching the students start to doubt themselves as the number of B’s started to accumulate.

After that the students were a touch more respectful towards their instructor.

I never used multiple guess question papers when instructing. If a problem occurred in the air then the solution never appeared as an option - the student had to know it outright. (It didn't help teaching classified subjects either...the paper would be classified). I once docked a student one mark for just using his nickname at the top of the paper...he only got 99% and whinged for the next few days.

[langleybaston]

I never used multiple guess question papers when instructing. If a problem occurred in the air then the solution never appeared as an option - the student had to know it outright. (It didn't help teaching classified subjects either...the paper would be classified). I once docked a student one mark for just using his nickname at the top of the paper...he only got 99% and whinged for the next few days.

Nobody but nobody was ever up for 100% when I taught/ lectured/ harangued/ bored. Thus deducting one percent would lead to 98%. Nobody ever got that, either.

[ShyTorque]

At the Puma sim we convinced one group of RAF students that due to notification of a nasty ear infection going around, not only did the communal headsets have to be sanitised before and after use (true), but hotel shower caps had to be worn as well. Later copied at the Chinook sim, too.

Difficult to keep a straight face when you see two heads with elasticated plastic bags bobbing about under their headsets whilst they were trying to deal with a serious emergency. :E

[reynoldsno1]

I taught at the aviation college of a mid-West US university in the late 90's. It became obvious that many students were cribbing during multiple-choice tests.. The next time I produced 3 sets of identical questions, but they were in a different order on each set, the set being discretely marked in one corner. Of course, many of the students failed miserably and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I just shrugged and said that was the way they came out of the computer - which was entirely true. No-one had noticed the discrete set annotation.

[Krystal n chips]

Nobody but nobody was ever up for 100% when I taught/ lectured/ harangued/ bored. Thus deducting one percent would lead to 98%. Nobody ever got that, either.

Well that says a lot about you really.

You will be shocked and appalled to learn contemporary training techniques negate some dinosaur doing their best to sap students morale and place the emphasis firmly on the instructor to facilitate student development and learning. The RAF actually ran an excellent Facilitators course, which was oversubscribed with applicants....which may give you a further clue.

Works remarkably well in fact and certainly when involving EBT / VLE techniques.

On the other hand, possibly your social diary possibly had plenty of empty dates given invites to end of course parties must have been rare.

To save you getting too apoplectic, I used to have similar, but "more direct and open " shall we say, "discussions " with former "colleagues ", not that they were, who were quite happy to churn out "Death by Powerpoint " as it saved them any involvement with something known as.....progress.

[Cornish Jack]

When I was 'let loose' teaching Tristar tech at Cranebank, I was rostered for a monthly tech refresher session. Nominated pilots turned up and sat at 'wired up' desks which had 'responder buttone to react to multi choice questions. Session started and one late arrival rushed in and took a seat. On the instructor's desk there were rows of lights indicating the selections made by the 'victims'. As we progressed, one such was slow to react and frequently wrong. Eventually I had to stop and ask if this chap was feeling OK. The problem was quickly sorted - he was a 747 student and in the wrong room !

[Jhieminga]

A teacher I know once created a test that started with a bold line at the top stating 'Read the entire test before starting on any of the exercises'. The last line on the paper stated 'Once you have read this, you have completed the test, no need to do any of the exercises'. It kept the class busy for most of the morning...

[wiggy]

When I was 'let loose' teaching Tristar tech at Cranebank, I was rostered for a monthly tech refresher session. Nominated pilots turned up and sat at 'wired up' desks which had 'responder buttone to react to multi choice questions. Session started and one late arrival rushed in and took a seat. On the instructor's desk there were rows of lights indicating the selections made by the 'victims'. As we progressed, one such was slow to react and frequently wrong. Eventually I had to stop and ask if this chap was feeling OK. The problem was quickly sorted - he was a 747 student and in the wrong room !

Ah yes, mention of those "wired up" desks brings back memories...most especially the antics of some of the more helpful invigilators during some of the quizzes for some of the non- mandatory, non-regulatory stuff that the head shed deemed had to be done to bulk out the SEP day......

[Ninthace]

Teaching basic electrics to the young ladies and gents of the RAF, we come to Lenz's Law. There was always one student a bit asleep and bored, but the lesson was followed by a demonstration involving a 1 volt power supply and a nice big copper coil with an iron core fashioned into a horse shoe electromagnet with an iron keeper. When the power was applied, it took quit a bit of force to get the keeper off the magnet. While the students were demonstrating their strength, I would take the previously bored one to one side and suggest it would be a jolly jape for them to remove the crocodile clips from the supply while their mate was pulling on the magnet. If the asked about a shock, I would point out it was only a 1 volt supply, theatrically lick two fingers and put them across the terminals. Matey, being thus assured would wait for my signal and then pull off the clips. Tthis produced a rapidly collapsing field and a decent back emf. The resultant belt would give me a chance to reinforce the learning of Lenz's Law and also drive home the point that apparently innocent things can still bite.

Then one day, out of curiosity, I scoped the back emf, and decided not to do it any more.

[NutLoose]

Halton, Omani student arrive to learn to be engineers, prior to this they had a year or so in the USA learning English mainly from a techniclal point of view, so few were very good at conversing in the language.
During one of the first classes as the instructor was talking one of the Omani's was chatting at the back of the class, it turned out he was the one with half decent English and was having to translate for the rest of the course. This continued like this until the exams.
Exam day and papers were passed around, the Omani translates the question and then simultaneously they all tick a box... this continued until the exam was finished and was scored, everyone one of them had the same answers... I do not know what they did after that.
I know they were looking to send one home until it was found his family (poor) would be in disgrace and would have to pay back all of the USA / UK course costs entailed, so he scraped through.

[Ninthace]

Teaching a class of students from Zimbabwe, I ask a question and get a rambling reply in fractured English. Eventually, I give up and interrupt, telling him I do not understand his answer, "That's OK sir" he smiled, "I did not understand the question either!" Lovely guys, great fun to teach.

[langleybaston]

Well that says a lot about you really.

You will be shocked and appalled to learn contemporary training techniques negate some dinosaur doing their best to sap students morale and place the emphasis firmly on the instructor to facilitate student development and learning. The RAF actually ran an excellent Facilitators course, which was oversubscribed with applicants....which may give you a further clue.

Works remarkably well in fact and certainly when involving EBT / VLE techniques.

On the other hand, possibly your social diary possibly had plenty of empty dates given invites to end of course parties must have been rare.

To save you getting too apoplectic, I used to have similar, but "more direct and open " shall we say, "discussions " with former "colleagues ", not that they were, who were quite happy to churn out "Death by Powerpoint " as it saved them any involvement with something known as.....progress.

A very long, splenetic, unfair and incorrect deduction from scant evidence.

[NutLoose]

Play the topic not the person K and C.

[OJ 72]

It's funny, but every time I see the title of this thread the song 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' by 'The Police' springs to mind!!! := :O

[NutLoose]

Teaching a class of students form Zimbabwe, I ask a question and get a rambling reply in fractured English. Eventually, I give up and interrupt, telling him I do not understand his answer, "That's OK sir" he smiled, "I did not understand the question either!" Lovely guys, great fun to teach.


When I went through St Athan on my course, there was a course of African PTI's going through, nice bunch of guys but we did see the funny side when we came in one day and they were practising the Javelin, they were not very good at it. In fact they were positively dangerous, we were safer down range of them as they were flying everywhere.

[Lomon]

I know they were looking to send one home until it was found his family (poor) would be in disgrace and would have to pay back all of the USA / UK course costs entailed, so he scraped through.

Sounds like an Omani ATC student, who managed to win the best student award, despite being able to barely speak English and regularly having an Airprox or two in the sim.

[Ninthace]

In the days when Powerpoint was spelt OHP, I went to RAF Newton for one of the very early courses on computer based training. It was interesting. it might even have involved an early BBC computer, but at the end, the presenter noted I was not overly impressed. I explained there was only one power socket in the classroom I usually used at Halton, and someone had fitted the roller board over it, so I could not plug in an OHP. let alone a computer.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I was once asked to help out for a few days at the Staff College war game simulator. My syndicate shows up on day one looking decidedly the worse for wear, so I asked what was up. It turned out the (late and unexpected) promotion of one of the students had just occurred. The class had “celebrated” at a local and notorious waterhole.

One remarked things were going fine “until the shooter girl showed up”

That became the go to excuse for the students for war game sim runs that didn’t go well. “So Sir, the battle was going really well….and then the shooter girl showed up! “

[higthepig]

Sounds like an Omani ATC student, who managed to win the best student award, despite being able to barely speak English and regularly having an Airprox or two in the sim.

Sounds like a Malaysian student on my course, lovely guy, but a complete hazard to all in the Sims as he had magnetic aircraft and no English without 5 minutes thinking time. He passed with flying colours, which was obviously and absolutely nothing to with the sale of Hawks to the Malaysian Air Force at the time......

[57mm]

Circuits at Linton were left hand, except for one day a week, during my JP course. The QFI gives me a simulated flameout close to the overhead; I whip straight into the pattern, rattling through through checks and radio calls, when I feel something being written on my kneepad. I glance across to read one word "Wednesday".......
.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Sounds like a Malaysian student on my course, lovely guy, but a complete hazard to all in the Sims as he had magnetic aircraft and no English without 5 minutes thinking time. He passed with flying colours, which was obviously and absolutely nothing to with the sale of Hawks to the Malaysian Air Force at the time......

Reminds me of a story of a friend who was a training and check pilot for a regional airline flying Boeing 737's. As part of a government "help those poor people in Africa program" they contracted with the airline to provide a free 737 type rating to some pilots from am African country. He was told that they were fully trained and ready to do the type course. He gets them for the sim after a disastrous ground school in which it was made clear nobody could fail. First sim he decides to start out slow and set up the sim at altitude and in cruise and instructs the student to get comfortable flying straight and level before commencing maneuvering. The response from the student "which do you want first, sir"

[Ascend Charlie]

A civil flying school was awarded a contract to train military students from a country that sounds like Saudi Arabia. They won the contract, based on a military-based curriculum and piles of manuals "borrowed" from the army aviation. Excellent standards were demonstrated, so I joined the staff. The first course of 6 went pretty well, motivated students and reasonably talented, but when the second course arrived (3 month overlap) it was apparent that the first course had been talking to the next course back home, pointing out that some exceptions were being made to the standards. Course 2 was much harder to teach, and when course 3 arrived, they couldn't give a rat's patootie about study or learning, and it was clear that 2 of them weren't even suitable to be on an airfield.

The head of school and I reached the decision to scrub these 2. Much wailing and threats of "My father is a General and you will be punished" and so on, but they were sent back home. The owner of the school then received a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the amount that had already been spent on these students, and apparently it was a small-print clause, in arabic, that said the money had to be repaid if the student didn't finish the course.

The owner was somewhat (!) annoyed, and from then on no student ever failed the course. The owner ensured that quizzes were dumbed down, standards were NOT to be enforced, and some really unsuitable people were awarded "wings" and sent back home to fame and glory. I tolerated the school for a few years but it irked me too much to see what was going on to let these rockapes through - they paid their money and got their wings. Luckily they never had a solo, and were always accompanied by an instructor, so the rest of aviation was not at risk.

[ORAC]

IIRC there were three graduation grades for overseas students who were not allowed to fail,…

Successfully completed the course.
Completed the course.
Was present whilst the course took place.

[Haraka]

Similar:
1.Passed The Course.
2.Attended The Course;
:)

[longer ron]

When I was doing a PPL course at Scone in the early 70's there was a Maltese Air Trafficker who had to get a PPL to fully qualify as ATC.
He had been there quite a long time and still did not have that important PPL.
Anyway his instructors finally let him have a go at the qualifying X - Country on the same day as me - which in those days was up to Dyce (Aberrrdeen Scotland).
He followed me all the way up and I joined in turn into a very busy cct of very mixed traffic - but not this guy - he just went straight in and landed :)
Needless to say he wasn't allowed to do the return trip - we had to land and refuel (as briefed) but they had to send an instructor up to collect his wee Cessna :)

[PlasticCabDriver]

I never used multiple guess question papers when instructing. If a problem occurred in the air then the solution never appeared as an option - the student had to know it outright. (It didn't help teaching classified subjects either...the paper would be classified). I once docked a student one mark for just using his nickname at the top of the paper...he only got 99% and whinged for the next few days.

But how would you ever achieve the ultimate “pick the least incorrect answer from the following 4 options” standard?

Back in the deep and distant past on the Chipmunk, there were a few tests in the ground school phase. They had been the same for years, the questions and answers were freely available. The staff knew this, we knew the staff knew this, they knew etc etc….. it suited everybody, but there was a game to play. Most of us used the answers to help in the swotting, knew which answer was correct, but perhaps just as importantly why. Come the debrief to the first, which we have of course all passed remarkably well, let’s go through the paper, question 1, “Dave you got this right, the answer was a, 12v, can you tell us why?”, “because…{correct answer}”. Question 2, “Mike, you got this right, the answer was c, 10 gallons, can you tell us how you got that answer?”, “errrrrrrrrr…..”. Question 3, someone else gets it right. Question 4, “Mike?” “ errrrrrr”. **** had just learned ABADCBA etc and and had no idea.

Next exam, new papers. Cheers Mikey.

[Shackman]

Like ninthace above, I had to attend an early computer course at RAF Newton, as I had been given the job of 'computer manager' on the Sqn at Aldergrove. However, this was run by the RAF Police, and was on 'computer security'. However, it was all based on the BBC Computer (remember those?) and early Commodore machines - and even better the lectures (!) were all done using OHPs, and mainly consisted of ensuring you switched them off at night and tied them to the desk or put them in a cupboard to prevent theft. When I asked about proper security measures - we were already using windows based desktops llinked to an internal network and under a constant threat from the various factions in NI - there was a very large silence from the WO lecturer, before he asked what a network was as he didn't understand the question. Even better he didn't know the threat as he had never been to NI, and as for passwords...........!
No one else from the Squadron attended again.

[India Four Two]

Late 60s at Shawbury, back when the helicopters were still flying at Tern Hill, the based flying units were UBAS and 8 AEF flying Chipmunks, and Marshall's Vampires and Piston Provosts, which were used as training targets for the baby ATCOs, learning their trade at the Central Air Traffic Control School. Shawbury at that time was no longer a Master Diversion Airtield, so the only itinerant traffic consisted of occasional Gnats and Hunters from Valley, practicing PARs and diversions plus aircraft coming to 27 MU, mainly for scrapping.

One day I was flying a Chipmunk with an instructor to the west of Shawbury. Unless we were going to do instrument approaches, we always stayed on the Local (Tower) frequency. We heard a Hunter T8 from Valley on the frequency and it was obvious that the student had a poor command of English and was having trouble understanding the ATC instructions. My instructor, Brian N, was intrigued and when the Hunter went around and was passed back to Approach, he switched to Approach as well, without bothering to tell the Local controller. During the vectoring for the next approach, the controller starts giving headings to the Hunter, to steer around a target at "unknown altitude". The penny dropped and we looked up to see the Hunter several thousand feet higher, making a dog-leg around us!

A quick switch back to Local and we heard the controller calling us, complaining that he hadn't been able to reach us. We didn't confess!

[sittingstress]

I tolerated the school for a few years but it irked me too much to see what was going on to let these rockapes through - they paid their money and got their wings.

Strangely enough that was not a course open to us mere Gunners! I expect you meant to use a different simian based epithet for the studes, such as chimps or gibbons :)

Per Ardua

[B Fraser]

Nobody but nobody was ever up for 100% when I taught/ lectured/ harangued/ bored. Thus deducting one percent would lead to 98%. Nobody ever got that, either.

You didn't lecture at Shinfield by any chance ? I was on a course where an exam question was to calculate the cloudbase. I took the dry bulb temp and dewpoint, multiplying the difference by 400. (The intent was to have the student do a long winded calculation using DALR yawn.......). I was deducted a mark on the grounds that while the method used was commonplace and perfectly ok, nobody likes a smartass.

[langleybaston]

You didn't lecture at Shinfield by any chance ? I was on a course where an exam question was to calculate the cloudbase. I took the dry bulb temp and dewpoint, multiplying the difference by 400. (The intent was to have the student do a long winded calculation using DALR yawn.......). I was deducted a mark on the grounds that while the method used was commonplace and perfectly ok, nobody likes a smartass.

I taught at Shinfield, having had the benefit of the GIT course at ?Upwood? several years earlier [harangued by 'its not "lecturing, you are given two ears and one mouth, that is a hint!'] , and a lot of time at at the whiteboard and OHP at Leeming, Topcliffe, Church Fenton and Finningley.
I later did three years at Shinfield and accepted the posting on a promise of a full tour in RAFG. That was honoured.

One of my best memories was End of Course thrashes at the Merry Maidens .............. the waitresses were topless on certain evenings by arrangement. That would be c. 1975.

[B Fraser]

Ahhhhhhhhhh.........."Thrupenny bit Thursdays"......... they got bottomless too but that would be 1983.

ECMWF was "early closing Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays". Happy days, no money but happy all the same. Our course speciality was indoor mountaineering where we would find ways of circumnavigating the bar without touching the floor.

Talking of overseas students, one chap from the large continent was tasked with using a computer. The lecturer.....sorry, instructor.... explained that it was just like a typewriter. "What's a typewriter ?" was the inevitable reply.

No doubt the cheque was cashed and he was sent home with top marks.

[NutLoose]

RAF Halton plastic Jag that was not a Jag, but an engine ground running trainer that sported a simulated Adour mounted and a plastic Jaguar, but not a Jaguar fuselage, complete with a working Jaguar but not a Jaguar cockpit.

Engine run ongoing, student in cockpit going through the runs canopy shut, all of the studes on headsets where the engine noise and comms is being played and a display board off to one side is showing a simulation of what is happening engine wise... Quite impressive, the stude in the cockpit has a motor mounted under his seat to simulate the rumble and as it starts to fail the cockpit is slowly filling up with smoke, still determined the said stude is trying to waft it away to read the instruments... coughing heard and everyone looks at the smoke filled cockpit,

Exercise over and a dead not a Jag, but a Jag trainer. They kept drilling it into us all, even us ex Jaguar Engineers that this is NOT a Jaguar.

[NutLoose]

One country that had the RAF teaching their engineers realised they were getting dumbed down engineers as the course was simplified for them, so insisted in intergrated classes with the RAF.

[langleybaston]

Shinfield, Met Office College observers' and technicians' initial course, in the days of mercury column barometers. Practical session.

Muffled commotion at the back, followed by by "please, I have let all the little ball-bearings out of the barometer" or some such confession. Nasty stuff, every office had a yard of it on the wall until quality aneroids were issued.

[Video Mixdown]

Then there were the ME students on a Helicopter Underwater Escape Training course who just sat in the submerged ‘helicopter’ waiting to be rescued by the safety divers. How did they expect to survive in an actual emergency? Inshallah.

[Ascend Charlie]

Then there were the ME students on a Helicopter Underwater Escape Training course who just sat in the submerged ‘helicopter’ waiting to be rescued by the safety divers. How did they expect to survive in an actual emergency? Inshallah.

​​​​​​​Like our ME studes who climbed into the cockpit and then sat there, waiting for some expat to strap them in. It was a JetRanger, not a Martin-Baker Mk 10.

[NutLoose]

There was a lad at Halton while I was there beat the monkey.

Apparently folk law stated that a trained monkey taught to tick random boxes could attain a mark of about 25% on a “vote for Joe” multi choice exam paper, so even if you just ticked random boxes you were guaranteed a 25% mark. He got 24% and never lived it down from everyone else.

[B Fraser]

When you don't know which box to tick, the longest answer is most likely to be the correct one. Teach that to a monkey and they will score 60%.

[longer ron]

When we did our Jetstream 31 course 'somewhere in Surrey' - we had a very switched on Jock Instructor down from Prestwick.
He was very quick to latch on to any knowledge weaknesses amongst his 'students'.
The first day our 2 senior Inspectors sat right at the front of the class but kept getting asked questions :)
Next day they sat right at the back - but it made no difference - the instr just went round the class anyway asking questions,he was one of those good teachers who said ''If I mention it more than once - it is probably in the exam''
I was very pleased to get the top mark to beat one of the senior inspectors who was a back stabbing tw@t !
The guy who usually looked after the Jetstream on dayshift got the bottom mark :) - then again he was not very bright and we others did most of the tech work.
The intricacies of the Prop control system got the brain cell warmed up on this ex single trade 'rigger' :)

[teeteringhead]

Slightly off thread but .......

I was examining a CFS(H) FHT, which required a full brief - as per a Mass Brief to a Course - followed by the instructional flight.

The questioning technique taught for the Mass Brief was "Pose, pause and pounce". One didn't say "Bloggs, what is.......?" cos everyone who wasn't Bloggs would switch off. So it was : "What is ....... (sweeps room with eyes).........Bloggs?", thereby keeping everyone's attention to the question.

So this was a one on one Mass Brief of whatever exercise, with the examiner (moi) as the only student. Keeping to the brief, the FHT candidate asked EVERY question thus: "What is......(sweeps [otherwise empty] room with eyes) .... Teeters?"

It was quite difficult keeping a straight face throughout the Brief ........ but he did pass the FHT!

[Dan Gerous]

Two stories of my personal exploits on Multi Guess exams.

At St Athan on my electrician's fitter course we had a monthly test on the main topic that we had covered that month. It was well known that the tests were the same as all the previous courses had done, so there were plenty of cheat sheets going around. For one of these tests there were only the answers for the first 80% of the questions and one over achiever duly marked these on his paper and blindly entered anmswers for the remaining questions. Of course he ended up with 100%. I don't think the instructors were unaware of these sheets, as at the 3 month test a lot of these people were found out as the exam questions were chosen from a large range of questions and there were several different test papers and you didn't know which one you would get. I also got !00% on one of these tests, the one on induction, and I was given looks from the rest of my course as to why I hadn't shared the cheat sheet with them. None of them believed I had actually done it without one, but I like to think the instructor knew the truth.

2nd year at secondary school and we're taking exams to see what we could do for 'O' levels for the following 2 years. Sitting the physics exam I was sitting next to someone who was also good at the electrical side of the subject and I had actually partnered for some of the experiments. When I say partnered, he took on the role of knowing and doing everything and I cleaned up afterwards. Part of the physics course back then along with electrical theory, was mechanics and waves, something this character wasn't so good on. Come the exam and we just happen to be sitting next to each other. Memory fails me a bit here, but I think there were a set of 5 topics to be answered, 2 related to electrical and mechanical and one on waves. and we could chose to answer any 4 of the topics to answer the questions on. A no brainer for me, the 2 electrical topics, the waves then the mechanical, ( I wasn't so hot on the mechanical side of physics). So duly doing the 2 electric parts, no problem and onto the waves. I happened to look over to this olther guy and he's copying my answers and the evil little barsteward in me starts to put the wrong answers in the boxes which he duly copies and then heads up to the teacher to hand in his exam, probably the first to do so. Meanwhile I went back and altered my answer sheet to what I thought were the correct answers.

A few weeks later the results are in, I passed and was able to do 'O' level physics, (thank you wave theory). Matey however has failed and I had the questioning looks from him and I just knew he was dying to ask how I had passed as he'd copied my answers. His mother and father come to the scool to see "The Heady" and get him onto 'O' level physics, but the headmaster was having none of it. I did meet him years later in the RAF, where he was an Aircraft Electrician.

[Ninthace]

When writing the tick tests at Halton, if a sum was involved, I would work out what foul ups a students could make (e.g. incorrect transposition of a formula) and make sure each of the distractors contained the "right" wrong answers. :E

[radar101]

When writing the tick tests at Halton, if a sum was involved, I would work out what foul ups a students could make (e.g. incorrect transposition of a formula) and make sure each of the distractors contained the "right" wrong answers.

Well, of course that is how it should be done.

Radar101 (Exams Officer, Cosford early 80s)

[Dan Gerous]

Ninth, I would normally round out numbers to make the mental arithmetic easier and chose the multi guess answer that was nearest. This has worked out well in tests over the years. On one multi guess the answer I came up with was one of the options, however luckily I noticed that another answer was close as well, and doing the maths properly I got the correct answer. (The difference was 2.5V so my suspicions were raised on that occasion). Even today although mains voltage in the UK is 230V, I still use either 240 or 250 as they are easier numbers to do mental arithmetic with.<br /><br />

And remember, if in doubt...answer "C". Amazing how many times that one was true.

[Wensleydale]

Ninth, I would normally round out numbers to make the mental arithmetic easier and chose the multi guess answer that was nearest. This has worked out well in tests over the years. On one multi guess the answer I came up with was one of the options, however luckily I noticed that another answer was close as well, and doing the maths properly I got the correct answer. (The difference was 2.5V so my suspicions were raised on that occasion). Even today although mains voltage in the UK is 230V, I still use either 240 or 250 as they are easier numbers to do mental arithmetic with.<br /><br />

And remember, if in doubt...answer "C". Amazing how many times that one was true.

My old Chemistry teacher did not like multiple choice...he claimed that he passed a physics o level paper without actually seeing the questions - his random choices just scraped him through the pass mark. His solution to being forced to use multiple guess papers? He would deduct a mark for each wrong answer, stating that if you did not know the answer then leave it blank as incorrect guesses should be penalised.

[Big Pistons Forever]

As Captain of a small ship conducting Phase One of the Navigating Officer course, I am getting briefed in the Ops room and the first stude, a gent with distinct East Coast accent reads the met brief fax which is basically clear and a million. I stop him mid sentence and tell him to go look outside. He comes back and I ask him for a short summary of the "actual weather". His response "well if I was a bird I would be swimming home as the fog is so thick I wouldn't be able to see my Arse end if I turned my head around !".

[Ninthace]

Multiple choice have their place - basically to check you have taught the students the last phase to the point where it is worth going on to the next phase!

[MightyGem]

His solution to being forced to use multiple guess papers? He would deduct a mark for each wrong answer
Ah yes, negative marking. The CAA were doing that when I was taking my ATPL exams. With a passmark of 70%, if you got to the point where you were pretty sure that you'd reached that, then you didn't answer any more. Just in case. :\

[Jump Complete]

Not sure if this qualifies in this ‘fun with students’ thread, but on my last type rating ground school, one mid-week evening the course of 8 of us plus our ex RN instructor (hence my excuse for butting in on the mil forum!) went to the local ‘Spoons, just for a beer and a burger before back to hotel for more study. Well that was the intention. At 1130 that night, our instructor was standing on the table, at attention, belting out ‘God Save The Queen’ in a beautiful Welsh baritone. We all joined in, while one part of my brain was wondering if the result was going to be getting thrown out, or a massive punch up….Pleasantly surprised when the entire pub applauded!
Next day, the door to our classroom kept getting opened, another instructor would stick his head in, breath in the methanol fumes we were all exhaling, mutter ‘Jesus!’ then retreat. Obviously they’d heard about us, and were coming to check for themselves. I think we were supposed to be covering performance that day, but don’t think it was a particularly productive day.

[BEagle]

I recall there having been some 'fun' arranged by Cranwell students for an unpopular staff member at the Stable Bar at a certain watering hole at Leadenham.....

Chatham House rules, but I understand that the staff member in question was subsequently posted rather sooner than he'd expected.....