Can i fail a OW course??

[thermalgeek]

Hi there, I thought about wether or not it is possible to fail the OW course, I hereby mean, can you fail the final exam in an OW course?

And just one other thing.. If you have some faults on your answer sheet at the exam, will you still be certified or will you fail the course??

 

[sasscuba]

Welcome to the board. I personally know someone who failed the OW course so I would say yes. Freaked out and could not complete skills. The ocean was a bit much for her. Pool was ok but the open ocean was a bit scary for her.

 

[Diver Dennis]

It depends very much on your instructor. The exam is not difficult I don't think so just study and ask questions during class. stang is right about the in water skills.

 

[thermalgeek]

Ok, i am not worried about not being able to complete the practical skills that are required to the course, but more about the final exam where you have to answer questions.

 

[CAPNVINNY]

In the Knowledge Development section,
mastery is defined as exhibiting acceptable
performance on the PADI Open Water Diver
Course Quizzes before participating in the
open water dives. (An exception is that successfully
completing the Discover Scuba Diving briefing meets
the knowledge development requirements for participating
in Open Water Dive 1.) In addition, the student
must exhibit acceptable performance on
the final exam prior to certification. The final
exam may be administered any time after the
final Knowledge Development session.
Acceptable performance may be defined as a score
of 75 percent or higher. This helps you determine whether to retest a student diver. If
a diver scores less than 75 percent, consider a retest, however the certification criteria
is performance based. The student must either score 100 percent initially on
the quizzes and exam, or you must review each item missed until the student
achieves mastery. You must retain a written record of the Quizzes and
Exam, and students must sign and date the student statement at the end of
the answer sheet to verify that they reviewed and understand all questions
they missed. It is recommended that students also initial missed questions.
from the PADI Instructor manual.....

 

[Packhorse]

A good instructor will go over the areas you dont understand untill you get it right. You may have to sit the exam again but hopefully by then you should understand it all. If you dont your instuctor is usless or someone else is

 

[phoenix09]

The final exam isn't hard at all, if you read the book and paid attention during classroom training. Even if you miss some of the questions, they should still certify you, as long as you understood what you missed. It depends on the dive shop/instructor as well - for mine I had to get a certain percent right out of all the questions, but wasn't allowed to miss any of the dive table questions.

Whatever the requirements are where you're getting certified, don't stress about it, you should do fine if you've paid attention and done the work you were required to.

 

[Louma]

When I worked for a LDS I saw quite a few people fail the final exam. You needed 22 wrong answers, I feel quite a lot of lea way, but they still failed. The people that failed were usually know it all's and didn't study didn't pay attention in class. They were completely surprized that they failed. We would offer a 2nd test for them to do and charge $30.00 to take it over. Most everyone passed the second time. If they didn't then they needed a lot more individual work, motivation, and reassesment of why they wanted to dive.

As an independent Instructor, I don't have nearly the number of people that we did at the LDS taking a class. Plus, they are paying a lot more money for the class. I think this is a big motivating factor for most of people. I hasen't been one to not pass the written exam.

 

[BarryNL]

A good instructor will go over the areas you dont understand untill you get it right. You may have to sit the exam again but hopefully by then you should understand it all. If you dont your instuctor is usless or someone else is

To be honest, the quiz is so easy if you've read the book that if you can't get the 75% pass mark you really need to ask yourself if you should be diving (or even out in public without a minder). I never known anyone who got more than a couple of questions wrong.

 

[del_mo]

I think you'll find most of the questions very straight forward without trying to trick you. The only tricky questions are the ones you read too much into. But they are few and far between. If you study your reviews you will do very well.