[CQ-Contest] Canadian Ham Exam Experience

[Ken Widelitz]

I've been working with Robby, VY2SS, to build up his contest station. I
decided it would be beneficial get a Canadian call. I got the study
materials from RAC. Since its been a while since I took the extra exam and I
don't use the theory stuff on a day to day basis, I read the whole book,
which is well written and takes a different approach than the study
materials I used for my US exams. I studied the question bank (and found a
few with clearly wrong answers.) So I was well prepared for the Basic exam.
The Friday before CQWW Phone I sat down in Robby's dining room and took the
exam. 100 multiple choice questions and you need 60 to pass. After grading
it Robby walked back in the room with a stern face and said, "You got a 39."
Now believe me when I say Robby is one of the all-time pull your chain
sarcastic dry wit humor experts. So I was certain he was kidding me. But he
said, "No, you better look at the answer sheet and see what you did wrong."
To say I was mortified was an understatement. Robby, Luigi, AA1AA, and I sat
down to go over the questions and answer sheet.

Robby read the first question and said, "I would have gotten that wrong
too." Same thing for the second question. Then it became obvious the answer
key didn't match the exam. WHEW!!! Robby called the guy who he got the exam
from and the guy says, "Yeah, I thought I had one answer key that didn't
match the exam, but I didn't know which one." Great.... I had brought the
question pool with the "correct" answers with me, so we went over the exam
questions, matched them up to the pool questions and re-graded the exam.
Turns out I got a 92.

Then Robby suggested I take the Advanced exam. I said, "If I do I'll really
get a 39 since I didn't even look at the material or the question bank."
Robby said I had nothing to lose and it didn't cost anything, so I took the
exam, 50 questions, found I knew some of the stuff and guessed a lot. This
time Robby came back not looking so stern and said, "You got a 76." So
hopefully I'll be VY2TT in CQWW CW.

73, Ken, K6LA