[Today: 4 miles]
After my run this morning I went to the ham radio club building to help with a testing session. I had not done that in quite a while.
They ended up having twice as many test helpers as they needed, but everybody got to participate and it all was good.
There were 6 people being tested and 5 of them had at least some success. I don’t know why #6 didn’t do so well, but his answer sheet was way off from our answer key template thing. I guess he will have to try again.
The testing costs a little bit of money. I think right now it is $15. There are three test levels. You can start from zero, pay the money and keep going up as long as you pass. So you could potentially get it all done in one go for one money. Another thing you can do: if you fail you can sometimes pay the $15 again and try again. You can keep doing that until the testers say, “go home.” I don’t remember anyone ever doing the 2nd try thing but we had two people today pass at one level and make a stab at the next level. Neither passed it. But it is free so why not?
We have a guy in the club who runs the testing sessions and keeps the test materials all nicely filed and up to date. He runs the test session. The rest of us do a bit of preparation work, checking people’s ID cards, etc. , but mostly we do the scoring and fill out paperwork. You have to have three testers sign the documentation when someone passes. So the smallest test crew you can have is three.
We like to see people pass. But we don’t bend the rules or accept any funny business. On the other hand, we wouldn’t know if someone had a hidden cheat sheet or whatnot… as long as they could manage it while three guys are sitting there staring at them. I would be surprised if anyone takes it that far. The material isn’t that hard, honestly. And the questions are all available on the internet as are sample tests. There is a “question pool” that is published. Each testee gets assigned a semi-unique testing book, so you can’t copy off of another person. But if you can memorize facts you could pass.
Like I said, we like to see people pass. We have no control over what questions are in which testing book or what the “right” answers are. That is all built into the question pool system. There is no time limit and we try to be quiet and let the people do the best they can.