CES Test for Seafarers

CES stands for Crew Evaluation System. It was developed by the Norwegian company Seagull Maritime, founded in 1996 by experienced mariners; the company's office was in Horten. The system was designed to assess seafarers' existing knowledge and to show what they lack in the knowledge areas defined in STCW.

The system's web addresses have changed over the years: the former CES sites on seagull.no and oceantg.com now redirect to OneOcean, which offers CES as part of its Ocean Learning Platform and is owned by Lloyd's Register. So the Seagull test, the OTG test and CES from OneOcean are one and the same system.

For a company, CES is a selection tool. OneOcean recommends combining STCW knowledge testing with English language testing and personality profiling to understand who needs support and who is ready to advance.

The result shows a candidate's strengths and weaknesses. Companies use it to decide whom to hire and to plan additional training for those with gaps.

After the test, the company receives the CES certificate and reports, including a summary of wrong answers, and the developer recommends using them as a basis for the interview. So mistakes made in the test may come up at the interview. There are also tools for comparing a crew pool with industry benchmarks.

In Ukraine, the professional competence of masters and officers is checked by a computer-based examination, and the Regulations on Ranks of Ship Officers name the CES 6.0 system of Seagull Maritime AS, or its later version, for this purpose. The first testing of seafarers on CES 6.0 in Ukraine took place on 9 November 2021 at the Odesa service centre of the state enterprise Morrichservice, still as part of a pilot project.

The examination is taken by masters and officers — to obtain a first or a higher rank, or to confirm a rank when their seagoing service is insufficient. The Rules for certification of ratings do not provide for a computer-based examination. The examination is organised by the Shipping Administration.

Features of the state examination:

• the program selects each seafarer's questions at random from the list for their position;
• the test is in English, with one minute per question;
• it can only be taken offline, in the Morrichservice examination rooms.

Under the Regulations on Ranks of Ship Officers, the threshold for the state examination is 70% correct answers or more. The certificate states the percentage of correct answers, the number of questions asked and the result, "passed" or "failed". A certificate of successful completion is valid for five years and serves as the basis for qualification documents, including the seafarer's working diploma.

For the state examination, the procedure is set by the Regulations: another attempt is allowed no earlier than ten days after a failed one; both the result and the examination procedure can be appealed.

After a corporate test, the company already has the report on wrong answers: ask the crewing agency which topics let you down and revise exactly those.

Start with the competence table for your position. The state examination questions follow the minimum standards of the STCW Code: for officers in charge of a navigational watch on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more, this is Table A-II/1; for officers in charge of an engineering watch, Table A-III/1. The column "Knowledge, understanding and proficiency" is a ready-made list of topics.

Each table is divided into functions. An officer in charge of a navigational watch has three: navigation; cargo handling and stowage; controlling the operation of the ship and care for persons on board — all at the operational level. An officer in charge of an engineering watch has four: marine engineering; electrical, electronic and control engineering; maintenance and repair; controlling the operation of the ship and care for persons on board.

Within the functions there are specific competences, and they make a convenient basis for a revision plan. In navigation these include the use of radar and ARPA and the use of ECDIS to maintain the safety of navigation; in maintaining the seaworthiness of the ship — ship stability and construction. A separate competence in the table for officers in charge of a navigational watch is "Use the IMO Standard Marine Communication Phrases and use English in written and oral form".

Next come English and pace. The state test is in English, with a minute per question. A term you know in your native language but recognise in English only on the third attempt costs you a point at that pace.

You can practise officially before the state examination — with the CES-6.0 trial testing at Morrichservice. The conditions are close to the real examination, the test is in English, the result appears on the screen straight away, and the number of attempts is unlimited.

Before a corporate test, find out which type to expect: by rank, detailed by functional area, or company-specific. What to revise depends on it.

The test is assembled differently each time — with a different set of questions, their order and the arrangement of options, so a collection of "answers" from the internet will not fully match your test.

In the state examination, any outside sources and prompts are forbidden. If a candidate uses a source of information, a means of communication or a prompt, the examination is considered failed and a commission member stops it. There is no internet access at the workstation.

The state CES is taken only offline, in the Morrichservice examination rooms in Kyiv, Odesa and Warsaw.

Corporate CES is an online tool; ask the company that assigned it where and how to take it.

OneOcean does have a mobile app, but it is for training courses on crew devices.

They are often mentioned together, although they test different things. CES tests STCW knowledge and technical proficiency, while Marlins tests the English needed for effective communication and safe work on board. On the OneOcean platform they are two separate tools, and companies are advised to use them together. The format and recommended scores of the English test are covered in the article Marlins test for seafarers.