Gfa 8500

I passed the CPAER on April 16, 2021 then I took the flight test on May 31, 2021.
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I got my simulated XC the night before. The examiner had me pick up two guys and their equipment in Merritt then fly them to Vancouver Island.
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The morning of the test I got to the school at 0800 when my test was for 1000. I finished my weight and balance for the simulated and actual flight, then 30 minutes before the test I got an email from the examiner saying the pax would only have 50lbs of bags instead of the 120lbs I planned for.
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Once we started the exam the first thing he wanted to look at was my route for the XC portion. He asked basic questions like why I chose 8500 feet. Then he asked me about Vancouver terminal airspace and some map symbols and he asked about the CYA and CYR that I would have to fly between enroute to the island. He also picked a random airport and asked me to tell him runway length, surface, and what the CTAF for the airport was just using the VNC legend. After going over the route he asked for a weather briefing. I wasn't sure how much he wanted me to go into it so I asked exactly what I wanted. He said to just make a go/no go decision. I puled up the METARs and TAFs in the Vancouver region and it looked IFR to marginal VFR, and the GFA had 8000BKN and 1500 occasional ceilings. I told him we could go to Merritt, but we might not make it into the island so I said I would not do the flight. He was pleased with this and we moved onto documents. He asked me what we needed to fly and I went over AROWJIL, then he asked to see the weight and balance document. After this we went out to the aircraft so he could ask some systems questions.
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At the aircraft he asked where the serial number was so I could compare it to the aircraft document. He asked me to describe the fuel system, which I said it a 56g total fuel with 3g unusable, it's gravity fed with an engine driven fuel pump and it has an electrically driven fuel pump for priming and in case of emergency, and there are 13 fuel sumps. He asked why there was a fuel reservoir, but I can't remember what I told him. He asked about the AHRS system and how we get a heading indication and I explained the accelerometers and tilt sensors in the tail cone which gives us the attitude information and the heading doesn't have to be reset because of the flux valve in the left wing (thank god he didn't ask how the flux valve worked because I had no idea). Finally he asked about the shimmy damper and what I would do if it was leaking red fluid, I told him I would snag it in the journey log and send it to maintenance. The ground portion took about 50 minutes and overall he was pretty happy. We then took a 15 minute break for a snack while we waited for the fuel truck to put 14 liters in each tank so we could be legal for a 2.0 VFR and be in the utility category.
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Once we were ready for the flight we went out to the aircraft again and I gave him a passenger brief. He tried to put his headset bag under the front seat, but I explained this could be a hazard and I would need to tie it down in the back. We started the plane and taxied for a runup which went as normal, but we had to taxi to the far end of the airport to get to the active. I was taxing at the flight schools taxi speed which is a "brisk walk" and he said "Off the record do you normally taxi this slow." I told him that when I'm close to the school I do and I didn't want him to be upset if I taxied too fast and he told me that it was fine to taxi fast on this wide taxiway.
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Once we got to the end of the runway he reminded me of the simulated runway length which was 2000 feet and there is about a 25 foot obstacle on both ends of the runway. We took off doing a soft field takeoff which went normal. I was planning on doing the P180 in this first circuit, but tower had me extend the downwind so we did a shot field landing. Coming in my approach was great but we hit some thermals and ended up floating. I though we went way past the touchdown point but I continued flying. Here is where I made my first mistake. We landed and slowed down with plenty of our simulated 2000 feet remaining, but I didn't come to a complete stop and just taxied off. For not stopping completely he gave me a 2. We took off again doing a short field takeoff and went right into the XC portion. The climb to 8500 feet took 21 minutes then we flew for a couple minutes so I could make a ground speed check. Right after this, he had me put the hood on.
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We started just flying straight and level, then he had me do a rate on 360 degree turn while descending at 500fpm. After that we said let me do a clearing turn and put me into a spiral dive which I was not expecting, but recovered from just fine. Last bit of hood work was radio nav. He asked to fly outbound on a victor airway. All the instrument work went perfect and I got all 4s there.
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At this point we were going to do upper air and he asked we could do it in whatever order I want. I did my safety check and did slow flight which went pretty good except when I recovered the aircraft wasn't picking speed back up very quick, but I still got a 3 on it. Then we did stalls. He wanted to see an overshoot stall. My flight test prep instructor never showed this to me, so the examiner walked me through it. We had a big left wing drop that I didn't use as much rudder as I could have and ended up turning about 90 degrees by the time I recovered so I got a 2 there. After stalls we went onto spins. We did a spin as normal and he asked if I wanted to do another for fun because he already gave me a 4 and we both enjoy doing spins.
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After upper air he said he wanted to land at his fishing cabin below us and there was a clear area between the trees to land in. I was pretty high from doing upper air so I said this is our high pass and I will descend on a simulated downwind. We get into the low pass and I say that the area is sufficient in length, but it looks wet and there are a few obstacle so I would not land here and he was happy with that and we moved on. We started flying back to the airport when he said "You aren't going to like me." and he pulled my power. Keep in mind we are on top of a mountain plateau with big hills and dense forest all around. I was probably between 3500 and 4000 AGL and I pick a little area of cleared trees to land in. It was a terrible place to land, but better than anything else I could see. I did the engine restart procedure, pulled out the checklist, told him I would squawk 7700 and I made a simulated mayday call. We ended up on a final that was high so I slipped and started putting flaps down. We would have made it perfectly to my touchdown point but this cleared area was only about 1200 feet long. He told me to overshoot and pointed out some alternate places I could have landed, such as some newly planted trees that would be soft to land in, but overall he was really happy. Got a 4 on both the precautionary and the forced approach.
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He then had me divert back to our airport, but there was not many identifiable land marks to find my position so I used the tallest peak in the area to give myself a good idea where I was. I gave him an ETA and made a simulated call to FSS with fuel and time and he was pleased. Got a 4 on the diversion.
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We then headed back to the airport and he asked if I wanted a break from flying and he can fly for a while, which I took because I was exhausted at this point and it was 35^OC out. He flew us right until we entered mid downwind and tower had us do an orbit to make space for a P180. In the orbit he asked what I would do if the door opened now. I asked if he could close it and I said then I would do nothing because we are in a critical phase of flight and we would just land. He was happy about that. Once back on the downwind I pulled the power abeam the thousand foot markers and started my glide in. I put it down maybe 25 feet past the 1000 foot markers and got a 4 on the P180. We taxied back to the flight school and I shut down the aircraft. He stuck his hand across and shook my hand and said congratulations. It felt amazing to be done and to have passed (and it was probably the first hand shake I have done since the pandemic started.
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We went to his office to debrief and he told me about the short field landing mistakes and the stall recovery mistake. He also said could we really have done the simulated XC and soon realized that the plane only had two seats and we would need three for the flight, so I got a 3 on the weight and balance. He also said that I could wait a few more seconds before making radio calls when I switch frequencies, so he gave me a 3 on radios. Overall though the flight went really good and I was super stressed for nothing. The examiner was nothing but fair and a really good guy with a lot of knowledge too. If you made it this far sorry about the long post, but thank you for reading.