Assessment Tips
Here are some of our favourite tips to help you get through your assessment. This blog post builds upon one of our Instagram posts. We really hope they help.
Check your location
⛰ Go back to your Strategy
4 - D’s
Direction
Duration
Description
Destination
⛰ Check each part: Where have you come from? What are your timings? How far have you travelled? Look at the land. What is it doing all around you? How far can you see what is happening further away?
⛰ If you are following someone else’s lead still use the same method.
⛰ As you plan the next leg keep thinking, if I am right, this will happen 🤔. Especially the description, what is the land doing under my feet???
⛰ If something doesn't add up, pause, have a drink, take a layer off. Think! 🤔
Check again - look around. Chill - breathe. Go back to your strategy.
⛰ Calm down. Make a decision. At the end of the day with a group, you would have to make one and deal with it. You can’t stand and fret for ages. Head to a landmark, if unsure, something you can relocate on.
⛰Carry on. But keep thinking, keep looking around. This will lead us to my next point.
⛰ Always while walking along, keep an eye on the land around you. At all times you should know what is happening all around: Is there a river close by? Does it bend? Where is that crag in relation to where you are? That valley round the corner, what direction is it facing?
We are all human, we all make mistakes
🗺 One of the main reasons for a consolidation period is to gain experience. A major part of this is done by logging QMDs. During these you will make mistakes: smile, pat yourself on the back, this is one less to make on assessment. Most importantly learn from it and move on.
🗺 However we are all human, if you make a mistake, chill. Getting flustered won’t help, you can’t get flustered with a group.
🗺 Solve the problem, problems are there to be solved. So break it down: Where are you? What do you need to do to get back on track? Speak to the assessor; they are one step ahead of you, and may have a plan, but are waiting for you to tell them that you are wrong. Don’t hide it.
Don’t double guess the assessor
🧭 Assessors have a big job, a big decision to make. Giving someone their ML, or whatever qualification, means they are good enough to lead groups anywhere in the British hills for the rest of their lives. Hill days are never the same every day, weather changes quickly and has a big impact on your day. Plus groups are always different. We need to know we can explain to a judge why you are an ML and why we passed you, Your Honour!
🧭 Assessors are always thinking, 🤔 we are gathering evidence, to decide on the result on the final day.
🧭 We too have busy lives, mortgages, families, forgotten to take our dinner out of the freezer, forgotten to pack our lunch, send the child out without their lunch! So our thoughts may have drifted. Same as yours. So don’t try to read our faces.
🧭 Let me give you an example. I spent my whole Winter ML thinking the assessor was going to fail me, he kept giving me a slightly puzzled look. I decided he was trying to work out how I would react, so how he should tell me. I planned my response, I was going to be cool about it. I also planned how I would tell my family and friends, again I was going to be cool. (Remember The pressure is from you not from them, they care about you and want what you want.)
🧭 However, I passed with flying colours and had loads of great feedback. Only years later I realised. We had met at a party in a Scottish bothy, for a mutual friend’s last Munro. He was trying to place me. A photo with us both on it had popped up on my Facebook. I had no recollection of him being there and his memory of me was faint! Too much whisky!
🧭 Lesson learned don’t drink Whisky!!! 😉
Why we give minimal feedback
🦉Let me explain, there are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly we won’t be there to confirm where you are at all times. You need confidence in yourself.
🦉 We don’t make any decisions until the last day, so we don’t want to lead you to something. We have an open mind.
🦉 However, we often give feedback halfway through. This can help to settle nerves. This is aimed at something we want to see more of, something that will hopefully make you think, and improve you.
🦉 Remember at assessment we won’t coach you to pass, but we will support you.
Remember your assessor has been there too
🌻 Yes, we have, and we remember the anxieties, fear, and stress.
🌻 We do our best to make it a supportive, relaxing environment where we can see you at your best.
Fear setting
💪 Before assessment, spend time working out what you are most worried about, talk to your friends, and make a plan for what you need to do to overcome it. For example, is it going out in the dark and practicing your low vision navigation? Then go out with friends, and lead. Use a GPS as a backup while you practice.
💪 Be well prepared. Have plenty of days logged, in all weathers, and within a range of locations.
💪 Know your kit, so you look and feel comfortable. That includes your wild camping kit.
💪 If you wear reading glasses, use them in the dark and rain, have a system, yes it’s tough. But we all get there, and will one day be going through the same. (I’m just starting using reading glasses!)
💪 Have a positive and open mindset. You are there to learn. Remember at the end of the day, it's five days in the hills doing what you love.
💪 Read Prof Steve Peters: The Mind Management; Programme for Confidence, Success and Happiness.
💪 In this book he uses the Chimp Paradox as a mind management model, that can help you become a happy, confident, healthier and a more successful person. He explains the struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows you how to apply this understanding to every area of your life.
💪 His advice; feed your chimp, exercise it, and put it in a box.
💪 A chimp will be negative - “I can’t do this”, “I’m older-younger, not as fit, as everyone else”, and so on.
💪 Give the chimp the facts, “I am practiced, I can prove this with xxx (number of) QMDs, I did that day on xxx which was hard, I had that long day out, I have made mistakes but now I’m better” and so on.
💪Now the chimp is in their box. Keep it there. When it begins to show its head, or when things are going your way, remind the chimp. “See I just led that leg, and I’m right, see I just correctly named that flower” and so on.
💪 Basically don’t let your chimp be negative, believe in yourself.
Finally
Enjoy your assessment, you will remember it for the rest of your life. Some great friendships have been made on these courses. So relax, show the assessor what you have got and that you are at the assessment because you love the hills and being in them. You can only get that from practicing in all weathers.