Term Exam paper -Benmore Forestry School
The exam paper is courtesy of John Keenleyside, Forres, who completed the paper in March 1953 shortly before the end of his three plus month exchange course period at Benmore prior to returning to Glentress Forester Training School for his final term and exam.
John comments on the Paper and other matters
‘ ‘The exam paper towards the end of our stay was a marathon as it required a lot of written information. My input amounted to five Ruled sheets of A4 paper; two Sheets of graphs and one of working out the information for the graphs; a total of eight to be produced in 3 hours.
The exam papers and marks were returned to the students who took them back to their original school where they formed part of the five term average. The final exam result and the Practical and Personal assessment contributed to the Pass mark printed on one’s Foresters Certificate which was presented at the end of the Course.
Awards at Glentress were handed over by Forestry Commissioner Sir John Stirling of Fairburn Estate Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, a keen forester himself.
To summarise the products of the schools represented:
The Dean was the Rolls Royce of schools producing foresters with hearts of Oak.
Lynford hall in the Thetford area produced foresters who reckoned to be better at growing S.P. than the Scots. Much of the seed collected at Thetford was from S.P. Hedges planted to prevent wind erosion when returned to Scotland these provenances produced poor form and did not stand up to exposure well.
Glentress produced students with lots of experience in planting forests due to the large planting programmes in the Tweed valley at that time.
Benmore produced students with more experience in thinning and felling as it was an established forest taken over from a private estate, although the F.C. extended it considerably up the hill and along Loch Eck side.
Gwydyr in North Wales was on similar landscape and climate conditions as Benmore but very little harvesting.
In all at that time the total foretry student intake was around 150 per year with an expected outturn or 120-150 successfully completing the course.’’
Going by the hand written marks on the paper John appears to have managed a very creditable 85 marks out of 100 and certainly a very great deal more than this author could personally achieve now!
Should anyone care to complete the exam paper their answers could be added to this website.
See the PDF for the two sheets of the exam paper.
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