What the boat licence theory exam looks like
How many questions, how much time, how many you may get wrong, and what a question actually looks like — before you see one for the first time in the exam.
The written exam — what most people call ‘the theory exam’ — is multiple choice: every question has four options, one of them right. There is no partial credit and there are no open questions. A question left blank earns no mark, just like one answered wrongly — so there is no reason at all to leave a question unanswered.
The structure, by licence
| Licence | Exam | Questions in the bank | In the exam | Pass mark | Mistakes allowed | Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mashit 30 | Seamanship | 362 | 50 | 40 | 10 | 90 |
| Mashit 30 | Engineering | 178 | 50 | 43 | 7 | 60 |
| Mashit 30 | Navigation B — Instruments | 193 | 50 | 43 | 7 | 60 |
| Mashit 30 | Navigation A — Coastal | 72 | Studied on the chart, no mock exam | |||
| Mashit 30 | Navigation A — Coastal (2013 bank) | 78 | Studied on the chart, no mock exam | |||
| Mashit 11 | Jet ski | 161 | 30 | 26 | 4 | 60 |
| Mashit 12 | Motorboat (power class A) | 315 | 50 | 41 | 9 | 60 |
| Mashit 13 | Motorboat (power class B) | 223 | 50 | 41 | 9 | 60 |
The two columns worth remembering are ‘Mistakes allowed’ and ‘Minutes’. The second sets the pace: across the exams it is between 1.2 and 2 minutes a question — enough to read calmly, not enough to agonise over each one. The first sets how much margin you have at all.
What a question looks like
Most questions are text only. Some — and in certain exams a large share — refer to a picture: a vessel’s lights at night, the day-shape she shows by day, a synoptic chart or a situation diagram. Questions with a picture: 137 of 315 in Motorboat (power class A), 108 of 362 in Seamanship, 78 of 78 in Navigation A — Coastal (2013 bank), 72 of 72 in Navigation A — Coastal, 49 of 161 in Jet ski and 31 of 223 in Motorboat (power class B). Engineering and Navigation B — Instruments are almost entirely text.
The pictures are not decoration. In a lights question, the whole difference between the right answer and a wrong one is exactly what the picture shows — so you cannot learn these questions from text alone. On this site every question is shown with its picture from the official paper.
The rule that fails people who knew the material
Some exams have failing topics: one mistake on such a question fails the whole exam, even if everything else is right. Marked questions: 138 in Motorboat (power class A), 100 in Motorboat (power class B), 93 in Jet ski and 110 in Seamanship. The full explanation is here.
What to do beforehand
The only thing that really takes the surprise away is to sit through a whole exam once, against the clock, in the exam’s format. On this site that is the mock exam — the same number of questions, the same range for each category and the same clock, drawn afresh every time. And if you are still working through the material: how long it takes.
The structure of the exam and the conditions for passing are set by the examining body and may change. Wherever what is written here conflicts with an official publication, the official publication prevails.