I can't believe that soap and soap dishes are being discussed after 3 years.
I took BMQ & SQ at Chilliwack, in the summer of 2007, brought 2 dishes and 2 bars of soap. In fact, I brought about 6 dishes and gave them away to those who needed them [I'm normally not so generous, but my mom and dad were involved in a multilevel marketing organization, so we had a lot of junk just kicking around]. Our washrooms had liquid soap and the liquid soap dispensers installed at the sinks. I only used my bar soap for showering. A roommate used body wash, and laid that out for inspection, and got no flack at all. I would try to not handle my soap very much when I used it in the showers, and I would never put it under running water. To let my soap dry, I would put it in the dish in an incorrect manner that allowed it to sit at an angle, and thus allow air circulation. Every now and then, after it had dried, I would switch it with the soap used for inspection. So, the inspection dish stayed as the inspection dish, and the shower dish stayed as the shower dish. Other than that, I only had 1 extra razor blade, so that I wouldn't have to waste time cleaning a razor blade. The way that I managed to get everything in place so easily was because we were required to have a towel at the bottom of the drawer, and the objects would leave an impression. If I lifted everything off of the towel, then you'd be able to see what went where.
Our course instructors never inspected the insides of our ruck sacks, so you could store stuff there, if you want to take a chance.
There were other things that I did, and never got caught for it, but I don't want to say, just in case there is at least 1 course instructor that doesn't know.
Also, my course-mates got caught for the same thing. So, maybe those instructors were a bit more thorough.
During our course, we had a lot of people cheat during morning PT, which kind of bugged me, because I would be consistently the last few people to finish any given exercise. The only thing that I could do fast was sprint. I think that a lot of the instructors knew that I was trying because I never got jacked up for being weak or slow, even though I was often the 3rd slowest guy. So, don't worry, but you should still work out.
For those of you who don't know what to expect, that's fine. I suspect that you aren't supposed to know. I think that they want to train you and immerse you in the culture of being uninformed. Also, if you could be prepared, then why bother sending you to course?
That being said, I want to underscore what somebody said about instructors wanting to help you. It's true. There will be exceptions on each course, and some locations may be completely different, but for the most part, the instructors are brilliant and patient. The easiest physical test was the grenade test, and I failed it twice. I passed the C9 machine gun test really well, the first time, but still managed to fail the grenade test. I never once got jacked up for it. I never got teased for it. People understand that life isn't always easy, and that we're all different. For the grenade test, I had about 4 instructors help me, plus my IC. So, obviously, they're out to help us. In the C6 test, the instructor saw my hand shaking, so he just began to shoot the breeze with me. I thanked him afterwards, and mentioned that it helped me, and then he said something like, "I know, because your hand stopped shaking.".
Regarding the asking of questions, you really have to ask. I made the mistake of assuming that everything would be spelled out later on, but I never realized how bad I was doing, until about 3/4 of the way through the course. All instructors have experience. Some instructors don't have teaching skills. Therefore, you really have to make an effort to get the information that you need. My 2IC actually taught out of the PAM, and read from it. I wasn't able to learn from him very well. Even today, I still struggle with my drills.
That being said, I barely passed both courses, and honestly expected to be sent home. In fact, I pretty much quit. I just did whatever I was told, while expecting to be sent home after a short period of time. So, obviously, you'll have to take it from me with a bigger grain of salt than usual.