Mixed sets
Practise telling them apart
A topic drill tells you what you are looking at before you look. The exam does not, and neither does the sea. Each set below draws 12 questions across a group of things learners genuinely mix up, in an order that keeps changing.
Expect to score lower than on a single-topic drill. That is the point rather than a fault: mixed practice feels worse while you do it and holds up better a fortnight later, because you have to decide which kind of question this is before you can answer it.
Marks and lights
A cardinal mark, a lighthouse rhythm, a ship's sidelights and a chart symbol — four answers to "what is that light?".
4 topics · IALA buoyage, Light characteristics, Lights and day shapes and 1 more · 62 questions to draw from
Draw a setPosition on the chart
Variation applied the wrong way, a DR called a fix, a position line called a position.
8 topics · Reading a chart, Latitude and longitude, True, magnetic and compass and 5 more · 38 questions to draw from
Draw a setWater that moves the boat
An EP and a course to steer are the same triangle solved in opposite directions — which way round is this one?
7 topics · Tidal streams, Ground track vs water track, Constructing a course to steer and 4 more · 36 questions to draw from
Draw a setWhich rule applies
Not what Rule 15 says — whether this is Rule 15, Rule 9, Rule 13 or Rule 19 in the first place.
5 topics · Lookout, speed and risk, Give-way rules, Narrow channels and TSS and 2 more · 28 questions to draw from
Draw a setHeights and times of tide
Four procedures that all end in a depth or a clock time; the marks are lost picking the wrong one.
5 topics · How tides work, Tide tables and heights, Rule of twelfths and 2 more · 27 questions to draw from
Draw a setThe three-letter soup
COG, SOG, STW, HDG, XTE, CPA — each obvious alone, each mistakable in a hurry.
6 topics · GNSS fundamentals, Chart plotters, Waypoints, routes and XTE and 3 more · 25 questions to draw from
Draw a setWhen it goes wrong
Mayday or Pan-Pan, which flare, which drill — the questions that all look like "an emergency" until you read them.
6 topics · Personal safety equipment, The boat's safety equipment, Man overboard and 3 more · 24 questions to draw from
Draw a setReading the weather
Warm front or cold front, backing or veering, radiation fog or advection fog — pairs that only differ in the detail.
6 topics · Pressure systems, Fronts and depressions, Wind and sea state and 3 more · 17 questions to draw from
Draw a setThe words for it
Sheet or halyard, tack or clew, luff or leech — and the cockpit call that uses them.
4 topics · Parts of a yacht, Rig and sails, Ropework and knots and 1 more · 16 questions to draw from
Draw a set
Want one thing at a time instead? All topic drills.