exam errors
 

Can any of you scholarly pilots tell me the magnetic track and distance from CPT VOR to Wycombe Air Park?,,, and don't tell me its 065degrees M and 17 miles because we would both be wrong!!
And if you want to have it reviewed, you have to pay! no wonder there are so many errors in the exams, if you try and give feedback you get met with a brick wall.

According to SkyDemon it’s 064’M, 17nm.

I once sat a multiple choice helicopter tech exam which had some glaring errors and questions with no correct answer - I failed it by a percent or so, iirc. Turned out it had been set by our company’s Chief Engineer who subsequently failed it three times himself when he had read the books properly!

Have you sent an email to [email protected] explaining that you believe there is a question that contains an error?

thanks Whopity, i'll do that, emailing "[email protected]" was a waste of time

the options were 067 or 070, the student selected 067 as the nearest, but was marked wrong.

I measured it on a CAA 1/2 Mil chart and it came out to 067/17 Skydemon gave it as 065 True, but with 0 variation is 065M/17

Guugle Earth.;064.65* /17.02nm.0* var. to middle of main rwy .ref pt

Did the question really ask for TRACK to be measured on a provided map? Wouldn't a map measurement provide a BEARING, or perhaps a COURSE, not a TRACK?

No, not aimed at anyone in particular. I'd just like to know if the question asked for a TRACK value because that seems to be incorrect terminology. Pehaps the OP would post the exact wording of the question.

Quite likely in the USA, but remember that this exam is based on U.K. terminology. In the U.K. the pilot would normally measure the True Track on the chart, apply variation (in this case zero) to get Magnetic track, apply the wind correction to get Magnetic heading then compass variation to get the compass heading. Different terminology for FAA and CAA.

Radial is specific to a VOR so not strictly relevant for visual navigation.

whatever you call it it still comes out at 064 ish if measured at CPT or slightly different at midway because of the chart projection, and 17 nm.

All of this raises an interesting question for me, as an invigilator. Should the candidate be revealing individual questions and some of the answers? When e-exams started some people (championed I recall by Beagle) complained about the lack of ability to feedback incorrect answers, as we were able to do with the old paper exams. I think the CAA wanted to inhibit the formation of 'question banks'.
Does anyone know the CAA's take on publicising specific exams questions and discussing potential answers on an open forum like this?
Personally as an invigilator I do get asked my opinion on individual questions but don't discuss it with the candidate but rather refer them to the 'areas of weakness' they get with their results. I'm always pleased to discuss these, as an instructor, but not individual exam questions.
I do recall when I took my Commercial exams decades ago we were specifically prohibited from taking questions out of the exam room, even in our heads.
Right or Wrong?
TOO

I learned map and compass navigation in the Scouts in UK. However, most of my flight training has been in USA so I certainly have more familiarity with FAA terminology than CAA terminology.

I tried to find UK CAA definitions of bearing and track but couldn't find them. Would someone provide a link please.

The RAF Manual Flying AP3456 defines Track as: This differs from the US definition.
The same document does not define Course which is generally not used in the UK however; it is on the front of an RAF Dalton 4B Computer as True Course; Dalton was American.

I'm fed up of the exams already, i think come ground examiner renewal time i won't bother. I will send candidates to other schools.
The lack of not knowing which questions the candidate got wrong, the ref. numbers they give too vague.
There might even be no correct answers for all we know based on past experience of the paper exams.
These people are hobby pilots in the main, need to stick to what they need real world.
Question should say what radial and distance is the airfield from beacon. There should be no silly answers hovering around the real answer. Like say 064, 065, 063 or 067. We know we can only measure to within a few degrees.
Unless of course we provide the quarter mil chart and some very sharp pencils.

BigEndBob, there is nothing to stop you using a second monitor to view the candidate's work. If you make any notes during the exam they must then be destroyed after you've debriefed the candidate.

According to NATS, the declination value at the CPT VOR was 0.7°W at 2016 and 0.15°E in 2022. I don't know whether that's significant for the answer to this question?

Using the lat/long positions published by NATS for CPT VOR and Wycombe Air Park aerodrome reference point, my navigation software, using WGS84 and current magnetic variation, calculated a mean magnetic track of 064.785° and a distance of 17.019nm.

Semantics here matter little. Interchanging 'track' for 'course' doesn't require much of anyone. Bearing is just another name for for the same thing although normally used to express from a specific point which is not static; for ADF use we refer to a 'relative-bearing' meaning 'measured round the clock from the nose of the aeroplane'. The aeroplane being the specific point but which may be continuously changing.

If the question is specifically from a VOR then it is a radial that is required.by the question. This becomes a track/course only when it is drawn on a chart/map, but is inbuilt, ready to steer using the magnetic compass (ignoring compass errors) with the VOR's local magnetic variation.

The CAA cannot do anything about this although they insist on trying. Most commercial pilot ground schools make a practice of it, thus 'feedback question banks'. The 'PPL Confuser', published many years ago was, in my view, a lift from the actual exam papers; the CAA were powerless to stop it.

Simple question with no ambiguity would be to ask the true track and distance from the beacon to airfield.
But i think the question was trying to be too clever using a beacon where the variation is almost zero!
Might have worked 40 years ago with 8W variation.

The above is the question asked. The answer must be the relevant VOR radial using the latest CAA UK chart or a specified edition.

Very interesting. Is there a reference or evidence of a CAA approval that an invigilator, who presumably, is also a CAA Ground Examiner, may do this? May an Instructor also do this?

No, the invigilator MUST be a Ground Examiner!!

The author of the Confuser actually sent a copy of the questions he had written to the Head of Standards at the CAA asking if he could publish it. The answer was Yes! The head of Standards then informed the Chief Ground Examiner who looked at the questions and recognised them as his own! The CAA can take action re Copyright.

The CAA view now is that if the questions are collated and distributed, there will be a ban on LAPL/PPL exams being taken at ATO / DTO and candidates will have to attend at exam centres.

Equally punishing those of us who endeavour to invigilate correctly..........................

Well, it's had little effect on CPL schools even though these exams have always been taken at CAA exam centres! LAPL/PPL questions and answers are being collected and then widely distributed for a price.

That is not what the author told me at the time. Someone is kidding someone here.

Unlikely and very expensive should they dare such an escapade. Exam questions must be on facts and texts that it is expected all should know and therefore cannot be owned. How can you copywrite the track/radial from CPT to Wycombe Air Park? My understanding from the author of the Confuser at the time was that the CAA didn't grant licence to him at at all but realized they could do nothing about it.

Of course not they don't grant licences, but equally they didn't know what the material contained. I do however recall the conversation with the ground examiner after he found out.

Whopity you said;

FF
That is just the answer to a question, it was not a licence or approval, simply that he couldn't see any reason why not because he didn't know what he was looking at. A bit like can I park my car here?

Basic navigation is simple, been taught for what 100 years. I read some of these convoluted questions that are unnecessarily complicated at PPL level.
I have students that plan a xc no problem, but come exam time fail the exam. Unless you look over their shoulder you have no idea why they failed.
The decode system is useless and vague.
These students are hobby pilots, not astronauts.

Flight planning and performance should be 2 separate exams. Ask say 10 questions on planning a flight and 10 on w & B, aircraft performance.

Was it in the days of ppsc they would ask candidates what questions came up in the exam so they could adjust the syllabus.

What we need is a real-life Savant to take the exams to get some real life word-for-word questions and answers.

Yes

It should be one exam of 120 questions covering all 9 subjects and due to blatant plagiarism by the industry it should be sat at test centres.

As for the content well the output of that is dictated by the person who is writing the exams. I always thought the IMC papers were very good. Any chance of getting that person back?

Well, the PPL exams are now the result of a committee so what should we expect?

I find them sadly out of date. I was discussing this the other day and it was acknowledged that they are really out-of-date and in fact contain wrong information. It's not good when you have to tell a student that the answers to questions are wrong and to put an 'x' in a particular box.
The IMC exams are based on flying using navigation using NDB and VOR and feature resolving a PLOG based on this. They are sorely in need of re-writing. AOPA started the IMC rating - perhaps someone like BEagle could give them a prod.

There was a tragic 'VFR into IMC' accident over the English Channel recently. The CAA have produced a cartoon illustrating the dangers of this. All well and good but their time would be better spent promoting getting an IMC qualification that doesn't mean taking 3 months off work to achieve. It is rightly claimed that many lives have been saved over the years by the IMC rating but with the uncertainties of its future, many PPLs have shied away from doing it.

TOO

I have also been made aware of another question in the nav. exam showing a picture of an RBI and asking what is the true bearing to the NDB.
this surely should be in an IMC question paper not a PPL one.

Same thing on the Canadian CPL exam. Question asked what could you derive from given equipment, I said you could get bearing and distance to DME station because the GPS was included. Got it wrong.

The RAF definition of track that was provided earlier is just the same as used by FAA. Track describes the path taken by the aircraft. The measurement of a bearing on a map or chart does not require the involvement of an aircraft.

Well the exam board has the data. If there is a significant failure rate on some questions, either the question is worded incorrectly or no viable answer is given.
UK we use term "track" for line drawn on the map.
We use "track made good" for actual in flight path.

I don't mind a candidate being asked for a QDM to a station if they are given a picture of DI and RBI.
Such a skill is quite basic if the aircraft is so equipped.
I always ask candidate on test if they can obtain a QDM with equipment if fitted.