The Syllabus - OOW
The first step
For a long time, the oral syllabuses for Deck, Engineering and Electro-Technical officers were given in MGN 69. Then, in 2021 the MCA replaced it with MIN 653. As is the case with all MINs, this one has an expiry date; May 2025. By then we can expect that the MCA will have finalised the syllabus in a new MGN. Till then, MIN 653 is what we have to work with.
So, what does it say?
First off, from the introduction:
1.2. The Examiner is expected to base the assessment on the competence and relate them to tasks, responsibilities and duties considered necessary for ship operations, safety of life at sea and the protection of the marine environment.
1.3. The oral exam can draw on any part of the syllabus.
This can seem daunting and yes, it does mean that you need to learn a great deal to pass this examination. With that said, the examiner is not looking for perfection. They don’t need you to know exactly which MGN covers every topic, or to have every fact ready at the tip of your tongue. What they do want to see is:
You don’t bullshit them. Don’t even think about it, don’t even try. If you don’t know, admit that you don’t have that information to hand but tell them where you’d find it and what you’d check.
You are ready to ask for help. If you are given a situation that seems unusually risky or dangerous, they are looking to see if you would get the master to take over. In every Master Mariner’s standing orders is some variation of ‘call me at any time, if any doubt, or for any reason whatsoever’. Take this to heart; your captain will be glad to be called and will be disconcerted if they think you are reticent to call them. This doesn’t just go for COLREGs; it goes for all aspects of your job.
You’ve put the study time in. If you start every answer with ‘I don’t know, but I’d check…’ they’re going to start wondering if you just learned the names of a bunch of publications. In my first oral exam I was asked what LRIT is. I drew a blank; I’d never heard of it. I admitted that I’d never heard of it and we moved on. Afterwards I looked it up and was astonished that I hadn’t come across this before; I checked my college notes and there was nothing whatsoever about it. Try not to let this happen to you, but if it does, as in point 1, fess up.
With all of that said, on to the syllabus. Have a read once through part 3 of MIN 653 (that’s pages 3-25) and Annex A (pages 118-125).
So, how to use this to direct your study? I would structure my studying and notes as follows:
One folder named after each Competence
One set of notes for each of the italicised ‘Knowledge, understanding and proficiency’ titles
Subheadings within your notes on each of the non-italicised ‘Knowledge, understanding and proficiency’ titles
Go through your notes for the above, ensuring that they cover everything mentioned in the ‘Criteria for evaluating competence’ and ‘Further guidance for evaluating competence’ columns.
What should I prioritise?
Some subjects do deserve special mention. An examiner is unlikely to fail you if you get a meteorology question wrong. However, if you get a COLREGS, IALA buoyage or enclosed space entry question wrong, that’s a different story. Some things you will need to know inside-out (Rules 18 and 19, for example) and you should devote a lot of your time to making sure that you are 100% on these. Other subjects, while deserving of your time, are not quite as critical, especially at OOW level.
How to study?
As to how to study, everyone is different. The only thing that seems common to everyone, is time. You need to put in the time. Maybe some people with 140 IQ and perfect memory don’t need to put in the time, but I’m not one of those people and neither are you. Nobody is born able to play grade 8 piano; nobody is born able to paint the Mona Lisa. So sit down, get rid of all distractions, and get ready to work.
You will need a computer with access to the internet, pads of lined paper, several ring-binder folders, pens (and highlighters) and some index cards, all readily available from any good stationers. Additionally, I would recommend having a simple wristwatch with an alarm. Don’t use a timer as you’ll just keep checking it and don’t use your phone as this will distract you, so leave that in another room. Set an alarm for 45 minutes from when you sit down, or however long you think your attention span is. Then sit down and study and don’t stop studying until your alarm goes. It really is that simple. The have a break, a mug of tea, go for a walk, come back and do it again. Don’t feel guilty about doing normal things when you should be studying; you still need to eat, and going to the gym, or for a run, will help you focus. If you wake up early and study in the morning, great. Personally, I wake up around 10am, do only an hour of study before lunch at 1300, go to the gym or for a run, have.a shower, then I become productive at around 1600 and keep going, on and off, in 45 minute chunks until 1am, when I fall asleep.
Another thing I would mention is that the way people learn does seem to be a bit like making a path in the woods. You struggle through the thick forest with your machete, hacking a path as you go. If you never go back that way, it’ll soon be overgrown. Studies have shown that we remember maybe 60% of what we learn if we don’t revisit it soon, so I urge you to revisit your days learning. Set aside maybe an hour and a half at the end of the day for this, and go through the notes you made earlier in the day, tidying them up, highlighting important passages, and making notes on any related things that you should look up tomorrow. Then get a night of good-quality sleep, wake up refreshed the next day and do it again.
OK, I think I understand…could you give me an example, though?
Sure. Turn to page 15 of MIN 653. Today, among other things, you’ve chosen to study the competence entitled ‘Manoeuvere the ship’. You read through the columns and make a list of things you want to know more about. That list will look something like:
Deadweight…how is it calculated, where is it recorded?
Draught…draught marks, how to read them, where are they, what does each part mean, where is trim posted
Turning circle…where do I find this? Where does it need to be posted? Same for stopping distances, how long to go full astern on different types of engine, most efficient ways of stopping a ship; hull cycling, rudder cycling.
Wind and current…tide triangles, set and drift, leeway, windage area. Asking for tugs in advance,
Squat…the physics of it, shallow water effect, interaction, compensating for these effects, mitigating these effects, planning for slower sections on passage. Factoring in squat when setting safety contours etc in the ECDIS.
Helm orders…good practice, closed loop communication, being confident and non-confrontational in questioning an order. Coning the ship, what does that mean, how do you know who has the conn.
Use of mooring lines and associated equipment…preparing for bad weather, which lines to send first, ratings of mooring lines, inspection of mooring lines, insurance wires, maintenance of roller fairleads…
And so on. You get the idea. Don’t ignore anything mentioned in the MIN; even a cursory delve into something that you don’t think will be important will give you an idea of what it involves. If you’ve at college you will have notes from class; these are a great starting point. If you’re using an online system instead of or in addition to college classes, going through the lectures for a subject, taking notes then expanding on these notes is an excellent way to learn.
Get a big pad of blank paper and draw spider diagrams if that helps you visualise the way each subject relates to a bunch of other subjects. Think back to your practical experience; did the pilot give hand signals when they said port and starboard? How did the person at the helm acknowledge an order, and how did they tell the pilot that they had carried out that order? Where was the captain, the OOW at that time and what were they doing? When the pilot boat asked for a lee, what did the captain do?
As to how to use Cadet 2 Master, you’ve already started. . What I would recommend is reading through each article as you are studying that subject. For example, today in college/in your online course you had lectures on Survey and Certification that covered the ACS and the EAS and the HSSC. So, later in the day, go through the Cadet 2 Master notes on these subjects. Read through the article, then formulate answers to the questions at the end. If you don’t know the answer to a question, read through that section again. I call these questions MCAQs; many of them appear in the orals reports of previous candidates, often more than once. Questions on the ACS, for example, are extremely common.
This is a long article, but if you’re going to spend your time learning it’s good to spend that time effectively. Mankind has an infinite appetite for distraction. I’m bad for scrolling news websites, Facebook and the like; you will have your own things that you’d far rather be doing than studying. But you want that ticket. You’re ready to do the work now and reap the rewards later and when you pass it’s going to feel great.