Nauti Test ProIndependent guide · Marlins test, Vocabulary section
The Vocabulary section does not ask for difficult words. It asks for the word a ship uses — and many of them have a different meaning ashore. This guide explains how the vocabulary questions are built, lists the everyday words that change meaning on board, and gives you a glossary of 73 maritime terms in plain English, grouped by topic, with six practice items at the end.
| Test | Vocabulary in the test |
|---|---|
| Seafarers | 15 questions of 85: parts of the ship, equipment, operations, documents and safety, for deck and engine ratings and officers alike. |
| Cruise ship staff | 12 questions of 50: the hotel side of the ship — food and drink, cabins and laundry, the guest's account, jobs on board — and the safety words every crew member must know. |
| Offshore workers | 17 questions of 85: protective equipment, areas of an installation, tools and lifting gear, permits and emergency words. |
Section sizes as listed by Marlins on its About the tests page at the time of writing (October 2026); the topics in each row are the ones our banks cover, not a list Marlins publishes. Marlins also says that the questions are set in the context of your own sector — which is why a hotel steward and a crane operator do not get the same words.
Marlins' page lists the sections but not the screens, and recommends its free practice test to get to know the question types. These are the formats our vocabulary units use, modelled on that practice test. Prepare for all of them: the same word can be asked in three different ways.
A sentence with a gap ("The ship is deeper in the water: her ____ has increased"), or a short definition with the word to find. Four options in our Seafarers bank, three in Cruise and Offshore. The wrong options come from the same area of the ship, so a vague idea of the word is not enough.
Six words and three boxes: you put two words in each box — for example mooring, safety equipment, engine room. In our version every box with the right two words is a point. One word you are not sure about is solved by placing the five you know.
Used in our Offshore units: four words, three belong together and one does not. The trap is a word that sounds like the others but is a place, a person or an action while the rest are tools.
In every format the test checks that you know what the word is and what it is for: a shackle connects, a fairlead guides, a damper closes. When you learn a word, learn its job, not a translation.
These are the words that cost the most points, because you already "know" them — with their meaning on land. The test uses the meaning on board.
| Word | Ashore → on board |
|---|---|
| draught | Not a cold wind or a beer: how deep the ship sits in the water, from the waterline to the bottom of the keel. |
| bridge | Not a road over a river: the room the ship is navigated and commanded from. |
| galley | Not an old ship with oars: the ship's kitchen. |
| hold | Not "keep in your hand": a large space below deck where cargo is carried. |
| berth | It sounds like "birth", but it is the place where a ship ties up in port — and also a bed on board. |
| list | Not a list of names: the ship is leaning to one side because of the weight inside her. |
| log | Not a piece of wood: the official book where events of the watch are recorded — or the instrument that measures speed. |
| tender | Not "soft": a small boat that carries passengers between the ship and the shore when she is at anchor. |
| stores | Not shops: the supplies on board — food, spare parts, paint — and the rooms where they are kept. |
| heads | Not body parts: the toilets, in traditional ship's English. |
| trim | Not a haircut: the difference between the draught at the bow and at the stern. |
| watch | Not only a clock on your wrist: a period of duty (the 0400–0800 watch), and the people on duty in it. |
The how-to-pass guide explains the main method: learn by zone of the ship and by operation, never from an A-to-Z list. Three habits make it work faster.
If you work in the hotel department, start with the glossary's "On board and hotel" group and the safety group; if you work offshore, start with "Offshore and lifting". Then do the rest: a steward is still asked what a muster station is.
73 terms in 7 groups, each explained in plain English by us — short enough to remember, precise enough to choose the right option. It is a starting list, not the whole test: our Vocabulary unit alone has 513 questions.
Written by us in the formats above: choose the word, words into groups and the odd one out. Answer first, then open the explanation. None of them is a question from the Marlins test.
Item 1 · Choose the word
After loading, the ship sits deeper in the water. Her ____ has increased.
c — draught. The draught is how deep the ship is in the water, so it grows when she loads. The freeboard does the opposite: it gets smaller. The heading is a direction, and a list is a lean to one side — loading does not have to cause one.
Item 2 · Choose the word
Which person gives signals to the crane operator during a lift?
a — banksman. The banksman stands where he can see the load and gives the signals. A lookout watches the sea from the bridge, a storekeeper looks after the stores, and a purser works with accounts and documents.
Item 3 · Choose the word
Nobody may go into the ballast tank before the air is tested, because it is classed as ____.
d — an enclosed space. A tank with poor air and small openings is an enclosed space, and the rule "test the air before entry" belongs to it. A weather deck is open to the air, a fire zone is a part of the ship divided for fire protection, and a control room is not a tank.
Item 4 · Odd one out
Which word does not belong with the others?
b — helideck. A shackle, a sling and a tag line are all lifting gear: you attach them to a load or use them to control it. A helideck is a place, where helicopters land.
Item 5 · Meaning on board
"Slack away the forward spring." What must the crew do with the line?
c — pay it out. "Slack away" means give the line more length — pay it out, slowly and under control. The opposite order is "heave in". "Make fast" means tie it, and a spring is already ashore when it is slacked.
Item 6 · Words into groups
Put two words in each box.
purifierbollardEPIRBfairleadcrankshaftlifejacket
MooringSafety equipmentEngine room
Mooring: bollard, fairlead; Safety equipment: EPIRB, lifejacket; Engine room: purifier, crankshaft. A bollard and a fairlead both hold or guide mooring lines. An EPIRB and a lifejacket are both used when abandoning ship. A purifier cleans fuel and oil, and the crankshaft is part of the engine. Each box with its two right words is a point.
Points in the Seafarers test. What score you need overall depends on your rank and your employer: see the Marlins score by rank, and the Marlins test for seafarers for the whole test.
At the time of writing (October 2026), Marlins lists 15 vocabulary questions in the 85-question test for seafarers, 12 of 50 in the test for cruise ship staff and 17 in the test for offshore workers. Every point counts the same in the final percentage as a point in any other section.
The words of your sector, used in a sentence: parts of the ship, equipment, operations such as mooring and bunkering, documents and, above all, safety. Marlins says the questions are set in the context of your sector, so a cruise test asks hotel words and an offshore test asks lifting and drilling words. Common words with a different meaning on board, such as draught, hold or list, are the ones that cost most.
Not by heart. The Standard Marine Communication Phrases are a useful reference because they fix the words of radio messages and orders, and the test uses the same vocabulary. But the Marlins test is a general test of maritime English, not a test of SMCP. Use SMCP to choose between two words when you are not sure.
There is no official list. The glossary on this page is a core of the most useful terms, grouped by topic. Our practice bank asks many more, in context, and explains each one after you answer. Knowing the job of a word — what it is for — matters more than knowing a long list of translations.
Far fewer. The cruise ship staff test asks the vocabulary of guest services, food and drink, cabins and laundry, but it also asks the safety words every crew member needs: muster station, lifejacket, the alarms. Learn the hotel and safety groups first.
By place and by operation, not alphabetically: walk through the ship in your head and name what you see, then walk through a job such as mooring and name every step. Learn opposites together (heave and slack, forward and aft) and learn the verb with the noun (let go the anchor, make fast a line). Then test yourself with questions in the format of the test.