For four years now, my apprentice has been training to be a Typograph/Media-Producer.
This week she had to take her practical examination.

It is interesting that in Germany they sent the exams along to the instructor with the request to make sure they were carried out correctly. In Switzerland, an 'expert' comes along to supervise.

The lady responsible for supervising our examinations first explained the exercises that were to be carried out and, when she was sure the instructions were clear, she pressed the button on her stop-watch.
She was a little put out that she couldn't sit next to the examinee, but the poor girl was nervous enough, without having a stranger breathing down her neck for two-and-a-half days.

Instead I seated our expert in the office opposite where she could see who went in and out, but couldn't actually see the apprentice without taking a few steps first. I certainly wasn't making life easy for her.
I gave her a coffee and watched her twiddle her thumbs and flip through her diary for a few minutes before I settled down to watch my protégé's screen from the comfort of my own computer, sending her the odd tip via chat now and again ...
You don't want someone to ruin four years hard work, just because they are nervous.

The Pre-Press exam is fairly straight-forward — unless, of course, you are a bundle of nerves:
• Colour-correction and exact cropping of three digital images; a picture composition put together from two images and a cut-out with some retouching work – 2 hours.
• Reproduction of a two-sided order-card to exact design 'drawings' – 4 hours.
• Design and production of a sixteen-page brochure, from initial scribbles (to be submitted) to finished print-data and presentation mock-up – 12 hours.
• Correct colour-profiles embedded in all files and everything saved to a CD after a specific file-structure.
After 19 hours points are deducted every 15 minutes taken, after 20 hours the exercise is broken off. Failure.

Every now and then, a colleague would distract the expert while a few tips were given or corrections suggested and during the midday break everything was checked and double checked. Another colleague made sure that the meal was drawn out a little ...

I heard of one young lady, who returned to her desk on Thursday evening after 'her' expert had left and spent half the night correcting and completing her work. We didn't have to resort to such drastic measures, we just spent a lot of time coaching and becalming ...

The mock-up presented a few problems because it had to be larger than A3 [420 mm x 297 mm]. The examination committee presumes that everybody has an A2 printer that wil print, bind and trim all in one go. Our A3 printer doesn't and is too small anyway!
I asked the expert to turn a blind-eye, while I helped produce the mock-up.
She did.

I got the thumbs up yesterday when I asked for the experts opinion on the results (I knew so anyway, but I wanted my protégé to see it).

Now we have to endure two days of theoretical exams. We can't help there, I'm afraid, those have to be taken at school ...