Written test question bank?

clawz

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Shawn P
My Google-fu is failing me today. I have found numerous references to a test bank of 400+ questions on the FAA written exam but per the FAA website the private pilot test bank is only 102 questions, with 60 of those being randomly chosen for the test.

See here - http://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/airmen/test_questions/media/pvt.pdf

-EDIT- Even the above does not seem accurate as they have helicopter based questions near the end.

Anyone know if that is the full test bank or have any other sources? I am prepping for the written test and wanting to go over them along with my other resources before hand.



Thanks
 
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You're looking at a representative selection of questions, not the whole question bank. The FAA no longer publishes the full set on their web site. You're going to have to get one of the commercial publications from Gleim or the like to see a fuller selection of questions.
 
I downloaded sporty's study buddy program for the iphone/ipad and probably did 5+ mock-tests a day through the program for 2 weeks...ended up scoring a 88%..

it also helped to get the picture/diagram supplement and print it out..much easier to do the questions with the booklet then trying to do it off the ipad screen...I actually got the supplement with one of written prep books....ASA's I believe...
 
If you have an iPad, ASA's Prepware apps are a good choice.

I have it for the instrument written and it's very useful for doing quizzes and full sample exams.
 
Thanks all. Went ahead and picked up ASA's 2013 prep book and their android app to study on the fly. Going to put it to use with all my commercial flights I have coming up soon for work.

Oh how I love airport terminals :rolleyes:
 
Recently the FAA has changed most of the questions on the written tests. The first tests to be affected were the FOI, ATP and FE, resulting in a dramatic increase in failure rates across the board. The same process is happening with Private, Instrument and commercial written tests.

Speaking with the testing department of the FAA it became pretty clear that they would like better pilots to be roaming the sky (as the number of graduating pilots has stayed relatively the same, the number of incidents and accidents has dramatically increased).


To help promote this new concept of a pilot that actually knows what he is doing while flying an airplane the FAA has not released the new questions to the public and is not going to any time soon "we are tired of pilots that have very little knowledge when it comes to the written material".


If you are like us, and have passed all your written exams already, you probably studied using the usual method of memorizing question and answer, heck I remember taking 7 minutes and 50 seconds for my FOI test and scoring 100 (the total number of questions was around 125 when I took it), and it took me just over 1 day of practice. I also remember locking myself in my house, phone off and disconnected door bell, for over a week to memorize the 1,500 questions of
the ATP.


Keep in mind that the FAA's goal is to increase each bank of questions to over 6,000 making the old method of studying obsolete.

Here are some of the problems with such a method of studying:
1 Not everyone has a memory that can instantly recall 6,000 questions (heck if you can do that why not be an astronaut rather than a pilot).
2 After you pass your written you possess no greater aviation knowledge than you did before taking it.
3 All the material that was purchased to help pass this darn step can and will go in the garbage (I know mine did).
4 The memorizing system might work anyway but it is very long, tedious and useless.

We can probably keep going quite a bit longer with this list, but we would become as annoying as the written itself. I have been teaching weekend classes for the past 11 years and have had people of all walks of life come to my class but there was 1 common phrase with most of them "I have tried this and that method and nothing worked, I still can't pass this test can you really get me to pass it in just 3 days?". my words to my students have always been the same: "I have to ask you to leave all your knowledge behind and let me explain the material in a different way an EASIER WAY. If you can do that I can guarantee you will pass the test”.

Our wish was that everyone could attend one of our weekend classes and find as a result an easy way to pass their written exam, but we can’t be in more than one place at once. So I went back to to the past where I used to be a computer programmer and decided to redesign our classes into a virtual course, that would allow us to be in more than one place at a time. The result of this brain child was Pilottrainingsolutions.com where all this knowledge is stored in a virtual format.

We have been asked “why is your course different from the others” and the answer has always been the same: “we will teach you the material, rather than questions and answers, in a very simple way using time tested techniques that have been very successful in helping all our students achieve their aviation goals, and thus far in over 1,000 students that we have helped, we can count the ones that failed using only the fingers of one hand.

If you would like to see if our techniques will work for you feel free to download one of our FREE TRIALS at:

http://passfaaexams.com/category/free-demos/

I sincerely hope that this information is going to be helpful and allow you to fulfill your drems of flight.
 
I downloaded sporty's study buddy program for the iphone/ipad and probably did 5+ mock-tests a day through the program for 2 weeks...ended up scoring a 88%..

it also helped to get the picture/diagram supplement and print it out..much easier to do the questions with the booklet then trying to do it off the ipad screen...I actually got the supplement with one of written prep books....ASA's I believe...

I bought Gleim for both my private and instrument.
I also bought the sporty's study buddy.

My recommendation is to get the Sporty's study buddy, skip the Gleim.

I did both private and instrument with no ground school or any more than 15 minutes ground instruction for any lesson with my instructor(s). If you are really on top of it and willing to read and study diligently on your own, you can get through both of those ratings with nothing more than the study buddy app and a good textbook.
 
You might find this site useful when preparing for a written exam.

http://www.exams4pilots.org/faatest.cgi?m=2



When you are really studying for the written i'd still recommend spending the $15 or whatever it is for the study buddy app. The test question bank is more complete. The exams 4 pilots question bank will occasionally have a mis-matched question, and the diagrams for each question are not all there.
 
When you are really studying for the written i'd still recommend spending the $15 or whatever it is for the study buddy app. The test question bank is more complete. The exams 4 pilots question bank will occasionally have a mis-matched question, and the diagrams for each question are not all there.

Not to mention quite a few compass locator and slaved direction gyro questions, which I'm not sure are even still on the written or used in the real world.
 
Not to mention quite a few compass locator and slaved direction gyro questions, which I'm not sure are even still on the written or used in the real world.

They are still there.

The typical critique of the written exams really lagging behind real world remains.

I'm working on the written for IFR and there are plenty of questions about outdated equipment.

Glad I remember how to get to Muddy Boots.
 
Discovered something during my lunch-study period.

I've gone through the King videos for the Instrument prep. But I'm using ASA Prepware on my iPad for test question review.

Today I selected the entire Weather question series to review. And found about 20 questions John and Martha didn't cover. Mostly on icing (especially tailplane icing).

This tells me that I shouldn't depend on a singular source to do my prep. Just like cross checking instruments when in IFR, it appears that crosschecking between prep sources is important.

For the iDevice owners, ASA Prepware is a good app. This gives me the chance to study anytime I want. The format is easy to use, and provides the explanation to the correct answer along with the reference to the correct FAA material.


The moral of this is, work through at least two sources of test material to make sure you are exposed to it all.
 
Speaking with the testing department of the FAA it became pretty clear that they would like better pilots to be roaming the sky (as the number of graduating pilots has stayed relatively the same, the number of incidents and accidents has dramatically increased).

I'd like to see the numbers to back up that claim.

I also think you'd have a hard time proving that the ability to correctly answer a written test question has much to do with aeronautical decision making, as it is practiced (or not) in the cockpit after getting the cert.
 
Discovered something during my lunch-study period.

I've gone through the King videos for the Instrument prep. But I'm using ASA Prepware on my iPad for test question review.

Today I selected the entire Weather question series to review. And found about 20 questions John and Martha didn't cover. Mostly on icing (especially tailplane icing).

This tells me that I shouldn't depend on a singular source to do my prep. Just like cross checking instruments when in IFR, it appears that crosschecking between prep sources is important.

For the iDevice owners, ASA Prepware is a good app. This gives me the chance to study anytime I want. The format is easy to use, and provides the explanation to the correct answer along with the reference to the correct FAA material.


The moral of this is, work through at least two sources of test material to make sure you are exposed to it all.

IIRC the FAA added a lot of icing questions, may have been due to the Buffalo accident if my memory is working.
 
IIRC the FAA added a lot of icing questions, may have been due to the Buffalo accident if my memory is working.

I remember the info that more icing questions were added, too.

I need to start working the other topics to see what wasn't covered on the videos.
 
The one I use is the one Ren recommended in post #11. It has the full bank of questions, over 600 for PPL, plus it also has the full bank for IFR, and more.

I made a habit of doing ten questions every day, no matter what until I was achieving 90-100 percent.

Even though I no longer fly, I continue doing the ten questions, although I did stop right after I sold my airplane.

One my written test I got 92%. During the oral during the ground portion of my check ride, I got 100%

Read my thread on the ten question a day habit if you want more info on it.

-John
 
I also used many different study guides but the one I liked most ended up being the one from pilot training solutions, mentioned on post #8.

I travel quite a bit for work and needed something I could carry with me all the time, so I am always looking for new iPad apps and stumbled upon this article from AOPA http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2015/February/11/New-instrument-training-app-released.
I ended up buying their course and I have to say except for a few minor bugs I really enjoyed it.
 
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