My comments above describe how it is supposed to work. When you see a new diver who is ill-prepared, that could be for a variety of reasons, none of which are valid.
- A dive shop/instructor can schedule too little time for adequate instruction (pools cost money) and pressure instructors to get students finished in that time no matter what.
- A dive shop can tell instructors to skip certain standards in order to save time. That is what happened to me in my own certification, and I did not realize it until I became a professional myself years later.
- An instructor can allow a student to pass on skills for which the student is clearly not proficient.