But I had to take one yesterday. Learning to be a scuba diver involves plenty of practical work, in the pool and open water, but there's also a stack of theory to take on board. And your knowledge is tested with an exam.
Our training has covered diverse subjects including human respiration, how to plan a dive, the organisational structure of BSAC, how to dive a wreck responsibly, and more. We've mastered the BSAC dive tables and how to discipher the markings inscribed into compressed air cylinders.
If taking an exam isn't challenging enough, the pass mark is 80%. That's high, but it's all stuff that a diver needs to know.
Before the exam we had a revision session where we went through an example paper. A reasonable number of questions could be answered from common sense and general diving knowledge, while some required an understanding of how to use dive tables or remember technical terms.
There's always a slight nervousness before any exam. Do I know enough? Should I spend a bit more time reviewing my notes? The BSAC exams are marked on the spot, meaning you find out whether you've passed, or failed, there and then.
We were handed the paper and given 30 minutes to complete a multiple choice answer grid. Within moments I spotted questions that I would struggle to answer. Help! Turning the page I began to wish I'd spent more time reading the BSAC manual earlier that morning. My approach was to answer the easy questions and go back to the more difficult ones, and I was skipping too many to be comfortable.
So I was relieved when, moments later, it was discovered we'd been given a more advanced paper by mistake. No wonder I was having difficulty - we hadn't been taught most of this stuff!
We started again with the correct paper and it took me 15 minutes to complete a test for which I'd been given 30. Fortunately this wasn't school and we weren't forced to spend the remaining time in bored silence, waiting for the minutes to tick by.
The good news is that I passed, as did my daughter. But neither scored 100% and we spent time talking through the questions we got wrong. One or two technical terms had escaped me, and some points of procedure were open to interpretation, to me at least.
I have one lesson to complete and that's it, I should become a fully-fledged BSAC Ocean Diver. Which sounds grand, but it's the lowest level of qualification. I'll then have to decide whether to move on to the next level, Sports Diver.
At least I now have a better idea of what that involves, having had a sneak peek at the exam!
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