Instructor Exams (IE) 2026 08
August 22 – August 23
You usually take your IE with IDC candidates from several other dive centers in the area. You are examined by PADI examiners (not your course director, although they are there to support you). On the first day you arrive, you are given a piece of paper with all the information about the next two days. This includes what your presentation topics will be and what skills you will have to perform in the water.
Day 1: Dry (theory and presentations)
In the morning you take two exams. The Standards Exam (open book) and the Theory Exam are broken into five equal sections.
These sections include equipment, dive physics, physiology, general skills & environment, and recreational dive planning (RDP).
You then take a one-hour break to prepare your presentation. After that, you present what you have prepared in front of your examination group.
Day 2: Wet
Confined Water | you start the day in the pool, where you must “teach” two skills to mock students. You must teach the skill and correct any problems the students face when demonstrating the skill. You then have to demonstrate five skills in a skills circuit.
Open Water | this mostly happens after the confined session during the PADI IE. Here you show the examiner your two skills in the open water performing each at a demonstration standard with perfect control of your group of students. You then go on to demonstrate rescue scenario seven. Everyone’s favorite!
Almost everyone I have talked to has said that the IE was not as difficult or scary as they expected it to be.