Your right, I read it the first time and thought it was for a CMEL ride. What would you have done tgrayson?
Prepping a student for a rote memorization-type examiner is like sending him into a mine field. If the student is too correct, he might fail; if he is too wrong, he might fail. Given the choice, I'd prefer to have him fail being correct; I tell people I can't promise a pass, but I can promise a "deserve to pass." Fortunately, I use one examiner almost exclusively, and I have a good amount of respect for him.
He did ding one of my students on this very question, though, but he didn't fail him. I went home and prepared the following document and sent it to the examiner:
Vmc Changed Document
He was very appreciative and from then on out, taught students that Vmc was tested at light weights.
If I
know that an examiner is misinformed on a subject, I may address it with him prior to sending him a candidate. As the recommending instructor, the examiner and I are equals, but once the candidate gets into the same room as the examiner, the examiner has power and the candidate does not. If I
suspect that an examiner has an incorrect idea, I may teach a CFI candidate how to show the examiner that his idea is wrong, but this is only possible on a very limited number of subjects. Foreknowledge of what the examiner asks on his checkrides is very helpful in prepping for this.
Ideally, all CFI candidates would be trained to the extent that they could always prove they are right, but realistically, this is unrealistic.
As an overall persuasion strategy, if you're about to say something that you know your listener will vehemently disagree with, you're better off addressing right up front. If I were about to make a presentation about Vmc, I might consider starting off by dropping the above document in his lap and ask him "Have you seen this?" That would upset the balance of power immediately and make him more receptive to what I had to say.