The final question was a simulator of the Meade telescope (and its controlling computer). Part of the problem is that when you switch on a telescope, it could be pointing anywhere, so in order that the telescope knows what it is looking at (and tracking, if required), you have to find a known star, and tell the telescope that this is what you are looking at. This process is known as synchronising, and it's a vital skill to have.
The trouble is that you can't just yank the telescope and point it at what you want (as you would do with a photo camera on a tripod), you have to use the controller to move the telescope using N, S, E and W movement keys. This sounds fairly straightforward until you discover that the telescope is on an equatorial mount, basically meaning that rather than being on a horizontal mounting, the mount is at an angle (depending on your latitude).
Synchronising the telescope to two stars, and getting it as precisely right as I possibly could for the benefit of my assessment, took the best part of an hour, but I was very happy with this result.
That left two questions from early on in the assessment, both about positional astronomy. Lots of words like meridian and zenith being bandied around, and to be honest, I hadn't a Scooby where to start. I can read the definitions of these words until I'm blue in the face. In the end I guessed them both, and got just one right. C'est la vie.
By my reckoning I have scored about 81% on the pre-school assessment. I am reasonably happy with this but of course I wish I had been higher. Unfortunately I can't dispense with the planisphere, as I will need it in Mallorca. But I sure feel like frisbee'ing it off the roof!

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