I was scheduled to take the 6-pack license test in June but had a conflict and finally took it in early Oct. I passed but was well prepared. I went over the Mariners Learning System material in all sections several times and also answered all practice test questions several times. I would rate the course as satisfactory. It was dry and only the facts were presented. Some discussion or explanations would have made things more interesting. Pretty much everything you need to know is in the printed and on-line material. I had questions a couple times, emailed them in and Captain Bob Figular answered directly w/in a day so that service was excellent, at least in my experience.
Lessons learned:
Know the Rules of the Road part cold and do all the practice questions you can before hand, maybe several times. There are 30 questions and I believe all are somewhere in the practice Q's. You need 90% to pass this section so you don't have much room for error. The questions hit on everything.
There were a few questions in the Deck General and Basic Navigation parts that I had not seen before or remember covering in the material. You only need 70% to pass these sections so even with these, it was no sweat.
The chart plotting section was a challenge. Parallel rulers have their limitations, especially with folded charts that drape over the edge of small tables. The rulers slipped continually at least doubling the time and frustration. Take your time to be accurate because the possible answers are very close to each other. By the time I was finished, the chart had pencil lines all over and it was hard to tell which marks I was working with. To solve all the problems, you will need to apply everything you learned. Knowing what to do is fairly easy. Not getting sloppy is harder. Good luck
John Beach
Blackbird
