20 Questions

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QatarDiver

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Background: My son got his PADI Junior Diver 10 years ago and has not dived since. He wants to dive with me in Sharm in September. He's doing 4 open water dives before then with an instructor, which can technically get him his Advanced Open Water! Terrifying! I thought up 20 questions as a quiz for him, the objective of the questions is to see if he understands the basics to be a SAFE diver. I'm not interested if he knows the answers to questions which are either theory or opinion, or which cover advanced topics like Nitrox. So here they are, I'd be interested in any feedback;
(It's all metric, which may well confuse our American cousins, and I'm off diving now, wont be back 'til Sunday, it's a tough life!)

1 What MUST you do when you ascend from any depth?

2 What is a Safety Stop, how long, what depth, why?

3 What is the minimum tank pressure you should have at the end of a dive?

4 How to you prevent a mask from fogging up?

5 What is a safe ascent rate in meters per minute? Why is a slow ascent important?

6 How much additional buoyancy is there between a full tank of an air and an empty one? (standard aluminium 12 litre tank)

7 Which gas is absorbed into your body when you dive?

8 What happens to the oxygen you breath underwater? (Chemical process)

9 What happens to the Nitrogen absorbed into your body when you surface after a dive?

10 What happens to your body if you ascend too quickly after a deep dive?

11 What is a Surface Interval? Why is it important?

12 Roughly how long would you expect a dive to be at a maximum depth of 18m with a 12 litre tank?

13 Your BCD is leaking air and you cannot maintain neutral buoyancy, your sinking fast and the bottom is 200m below you, what do you do?

14 Your at 32m and you notice your buddy is acting strangely, what do you think has happened, what do you do?

15 At 15m, your inflator hose to your BCD stops working, you need some more buoyancy, what do you do?

16 The O ring on your tank valve blows at 18m, what do you do?

17 What is a reciprocal bearing? Why is it important?

18 You loose sight of your buddy and all the other divers, what do you do?

19 You don't feel good, you're tense and not enjoying the dive, what do you do?

20 You surface after the dive, you cant see the dive boat, what do you do?
 
I'm not sure questions alone are the best way to 'test' a diver, but it's a good set.

I'd replace 3 by an actual min gas planning exercise (the 500psi/50bars rule is quite arbitrary).

I'd replace 6 by 'how do you know you have the correct quantity of weights on your belt?'

I'd replace 17 by a 'how do you avoid getting lost'. Compass based orientation is rarely the best option.

And I'd ditch a couple physiology questions (7,8) and replace them by standard NDL/deco time questions (going for the practical aspects). Another missing topic is breath holding/AGE.

Happy diving!
 
I'm not sure questions alone are the best way to 'test' a diver, but it's a good set.

I'd replace 3 by an actual min gas planning exercise (the 500psi/50bars rule is quite arbitrary).

I'd replace 6 by 'how do you know you have the correct quantity of weights on your belt?'

I'd replace 17 by a 'how do you avoid getting lost'. Compass based orientation is rarely the best option.

And I'd ditch a couple physiology questions (7,8) and replace them by standard NDL/deco time questions (going for the practical aspects). Another missing topic is breath holding/AGE.
I think that's question #1. I agree with your recommendation to stay focused on the practical.
 
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My head would be so full I would have to go to bed.
 
I came back to diving after 19 years away. Took the Jr. OW in '90 and didn't do anything more than a few pool dives in '97-98. When it came time to return, I reread the OW manual, read a bunch of posts here, and did some skills in a pool. It all came back very quickly and I had no problems with the basics. As long as he is able to put into practice what he reads, he should be good to go for the train up dives.
 
Focus on breathing, weighting, and ascending. I wouldn't worry so much about all the questions; the instructor will likely sort a lot of this out in their four dives. Then you can toss your book at him and have him brush up. :)

You're a good dad for caring.
 
Thanks for the feedback, he's just sent through his answers, not at all bad, and at least he got question 1 correct! He's doing his refresher course today, then 4 open water dives. Perhaps I should add that I'm based in Qatar, he's in the UK, hence the use of email for father/son communication!
I'm looking forward to the holiday, we ski together as a family, it would be nice to dive together too.
 
I think that was a pretty good set of questions, except for one. How much gas do you get back on the boat with, and HOW DO YOU PLAN YOUR DIVE TO MAKE SURE YOU END UP WITH THAT MUCH GAS!
 
This is all well and good, and I'm glad you are taking so much interest in his diving. However knowing and doing are two different things. For myself, the theory and knowledge came easy (I aced my OW test) however it took some time for me to get the skills down. If there is ANY way possible I would dive with him, even if its just in a pool, and practice the basics (air share, mask clear, reg recovery, etc) and THEN judge his ability.

Background: My son got his PADI Junior Diver 10 years ago and has not dived since. He wants to dive with me in Sharm in September. He's doing 4 open water dives before then with an instructor, which can technically get him his Advanced Open Water! Terrifying! I thought up 20 questions as a quiz for him, the objective of the questions is to see if he understands the basics to be a SAFE diver. I'm not interested if he knows the answers to questions which are either theory or opinion, or which cover advanced topics like Nitrox. So here they are, I'd be interested in any feedback;
(It's all metric, which may well confuse our American cousins, and I'm off diving now, wont be back 'til Sunday, it's a tough life!)

1 What MUST you do when you ascend from any depth?

2 What is a Safety Stop, how long, what depth, why?

3 What is the minimum tank pressure you should have at the end of a dive?

4 How to you prevent a mask from fogging up?

5 What is a safe ascent rate in meters per minute? Why is a slow ascent important?

6 How much additional buoyancy is there between a full tank of an air and an empty one? (standard aluminium 12 litre tank)

7 Which gas is absorbed into your body when you dive?

8 What happens to the oxygen you breath underwater? (Chemical process)

9 What happens to the Nitrogen absorbed into your body when you surface after a dive?

10 What happens to your body if you ascend too quickly after a deep dive?

11 What is a Surface Interval? Why is it important?

12 Roughly how long would you expect a dive to be at a maximum depth of 18m with a 12 litre tank?

13 Your BCD is leaking air and you cannot maintain neutral buoyancy, your sinking fast and the bottom is 200m below you, what do you do?

14 Your at 32m and you notice your buddy is acting strangely, what do you think has happened, what do you do?

15 At 15m, your inflator hose to your BCD stops working, you need some more buoyancy, what do you do?

16 The O ring on your tank valve blows at 18m, what do you do?

17 What is a reciprocal bearing? Why is it important?

18 You loose sight of your buddy and all the other divers, what do you do?

19 You don't feel good, you're tense and not enjoying the dive, what do you do?

20 You surface after the dive, you cant see the dive boat, what do you do?
 
Sounds like a decent plan to me. Send him the email questions to trigger review. He's diving with an instructor to tune up the skills. A serious talk to him about diving style/expectations/goals and a bit of a dip with him to just tidy up loose ends. :) Kudos for thinking ahead and trying multi level approach to get "the bugs worked out" before you get into the serious diving:worship:
 
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