SCHEDULE OF DEPARTMENTAL REQUIREMENTS--continued.

• For civil engineering cadets in the signalling and electrical branch of the Railway service (14) Magnetism and Electricity must be taken in lieu of (49) Building-construction.

This regulation shall be deemed to take effect on and from the 1st day of April, 1915.

SCOPE OF THE EXAMINATION.

200I. The scope of the examination in the several subjects is here indicated more or less fully:—

(1.) English Composition, including Precis-writing and Correspondence (two papers).—Precis-writing, Composition, and Correspondence, with special reference to the candidate’s power of expressing in terse, clear, and correct English the substance of a set of correspondence or in the making of abstracts of single documents or speeches; writing letters from hastily written, incomplete, or merely suggestive drafts or minutes; the reading, copying, and recasting of manuscript. The examination may also include passages for criticism and amendment, or other exercises designed to test the candidate’s knowledge of the principles of English composition and the power of applying them; a short essay on an appropriate topic will be set, and generally the ability to write good English will be treated as essential.

(2.) English Literature.—The course required will include an appreciative and critical study of certain special books to be prescribed from time to time and duly announced, or else of certain special books together with a period of literature.

(3) to (9). In Languages other than English candidates will be required to show reasonable proficiency in translating from and into the language chosen; to show a knowledge of certain special books; and to answer questions in grammar arising out of the special books. In each language one or more special books will be prescribed from time to time and duly announced. At least one of the passages set for translation from the language shall be taken from a special book so prescribed, and part of the work set for translation into the language shall be based upon the vocabulary and diction of one of such prescribed special books. The provisions relating to special books shall not, unless the Commissioner otherwise directs, apply to Maori, and this subclause in its application to Maori is to be read as modified accordingly. For Maori the examination in scope and standard will be approximately the same as is prescribed by regulations under the Native Land Act for a first-grade Interpreter’s license.

Questions may also be set to test an elementary knowledge of a period in the national or literary history, as may from time to time be specified in the announcement relating to special books.

(10.) Arithmetic and Algebra.—(a.) Arithmetic: Contracted and approximate methods of multiplying and dividing numbers, so as to omit all unnecessary figures; use of rough checks, especially with regard to the position of the decimal point; use of such expressions as 1·732 × 10⁴ for 17320, and 1·732 × 10⁻³ for ·001732. Meaning of a common logarithm; use of logarithmic tables of four or five figures. Calculation of numerical values from formulae. Working of problems in practice, interest, &c., by decimals; use of squared paper, and application of graphical methods to arithmetical problems.