[Rich]

FYI... my friend studied the NH material, passed the online portion of the NH exam, but between work and family obligations he found it very difficult to find an in person exam thst he could attend.

So instead of missing a summer of boating, he has learned the material ( from both NH and MD) and is now boating gaining experience.

Not everyone is retired nor has a lot of spare time. He found he could easily do this study during lunch and/or other spare time, so why not pass the exam online too.

Also, some people freeze up at exams and are intimidated by a formal environment, this gives them a more casual environment to pass the exam. Heck, even his wife took the class and passed too, just to show she could get a better score than him. She never would have done this if she was forced to go to a proctored exam. So now we have two boaters that know the material, instead of just one!

I only mentioned this option here to possibly help others that may be in a similar predicament.

There appears to be no laws nor polices broken here. Can you find even one printed that says this is frowned upon or not allowed? When he told me about it, I looked myself and couldn't fine one myself.

How about those of you that took the NH online exam before NH required you to attend a proctored exam? Did you run out and retake your exam because you are not playing by the current rules? I'm guessing not. I bet a lot of people actually rushed in to take the online exam before the deadline to require the in person proctored exam occurred. Do you want all those people to turn in their certificate and take the course again because they circumvented the new system? I doubt it.