The 'torture' of MMD through oral examinations

Examining the responses of mariners on the FB group topic “howto load elephants cargo on merchant ships”, a different point-of-view will help reveal to all what is the idea of Torture which is often alleged by the candidate against the MMD.

Many seafarers attempted answers this real life challenge, if it were ever to happen to them on their ship, from a mindset of as though sitting in an examination. The two categories of the responses , “oh, it’s harassment to ask such questions”, and “you have to have an answer for the MMD surveyor which he should accept”, speak of what is the idea of ‘Torture’ all about. The kind of psychometric seizure from which these two type-categories responses come are the examples of what the MMD ‘tortured’ candidates start to behave like .

These conducts are quite similar to how a badly traumatized person conducts himself after being burnt by hot water once in his life. The English language proverbial citation of this conduct is ‘once bitten ,twice shy’, - when a person adopts a mental block after suffering a trauma.

Examining the aspects of how this ‘torture’ comes about, the philosophical concept of ‘Dualism of nature’ will have be invoked in the first place so to reveal the mechanism of this ‘torture’.

While the larger purpose of asking such questions by an examiner could be about knowing his skills of handling the strange cargoes, the question will definitely be presented to the candidate as a particular cargo, say the Elephant loading in this case.

Further, the issues of personality disorders of people, be it the surveyors or the candidates is an presumed idea.

So, during this exam, the conduct of the examiner towards the candidate when already enquired odd , strange question will become the only measuring stick of what could be the genuine purpose of asking this question. This uncertainty would be enough to increase the stress load on an already stressed candidate to take central idea of such questions being a method to traumatically defeat him.

 The absence of a general courteous conduct of the examiner towards the candidate, absence of explanatory notes on the themes of this question, will keep mounting the uncertainty in the mind of the candidate as to what the examiner is wanting from him.

To prove, or atleast to signal is genuineness to the candidates so that the candidate does not become unduly psychologically upset after hearing the questions, the MMD examiner should take measures to sooth the candidates about his motives, intentions, purposes before he sets out to ask his first question.  

Ofcourse the notion of ‘Torture’ has often been scrupulously invoked by many a candidates, so to induce examiner to ask him comparatively easier questions. However, the ‘torture’ idea is not to mean the questions should be deliberately scaled down in the difficulty level; the idea is only about conveying the purposes of asking the questions to the candidates. Some techniques which can be involved so to clear the purpose theme of the candidates could be like accepting the candidates point of view and real-life observations relevant with the question.  Sharing one’s own real-life experiences pertaining to the theme of the question can also help ease the stress and trauma of the candidate. Examiner can do this info-sharing after having done with the examination. Such informal-looking exchanges have a great value in setting the ambience of examination for other candidates who will come this examiner in future.