Private Pilot Written Test Update

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write-stuff
As we all know, the "new" Private Pilot written test started this week. At this early stage there is no way of knowing precisely what new questions have been added, but the new Knowledge Test Supplement can give us some clues. It does include some changes that are guaranteed to result in new questions. Whatever you are using to take practice tests, use this simple check to confirm that the questions have been updated, at the very least, to use the new Knowledge Test Supplement. Find the VOR questions and look at the graphic indicator shown in the Figures. It should look like the figure on the right:

old-vs-new.jpg
 
So slightly better graphic$ ?
 
James331 said:
So slightly better graphic$ ?
Click to expand...

No, totally different graphics in some cases. The new VOR figures, for example, don't match the previous ones. So in that case, not only are the graphics different, but the questions will absolutely be different, too.
 
Am I missing something? All those VORs are showing 210 to, needle centered
 
A current test report is still good for a practical, correct?
 
write-stuff said:
As we all know, the "new" Private Pilot written test started this week. At this early stage there is no way of knowing precisely what new questions have been added, but the new Knowledge Test Supplement can give us some clues. It does include some changes that are guaranteed to result in new questions. Whatever you are using to take practice tests, use this simple check to confirm that the questions have been updated, at the very least, to use the new Knowledge Test Supplement. Find the VOR questions and look at the graphic indicator shown in the Figures. It should look like the figure on the right:

old-vs-new.jpg
Click to expand...
Yep, I got a sneak peak at that one on my written last week, they gave me the wrong supplement, Current now, pre-release when I was given it.
 
Are the test preps that are out there now, like the Sporty's Study Buddy, are they applicable and reliable for study purposes with the new test. I know that the questions and answers may be different, but as long as a person understands the theory and the principles, is it really that different? I mean, that should be the intent, not just to memorize the question and answers, right? Or am I missing something here? I'm anxious to hear from someone that has recently tested with the new ACS test. I am right next to being ready to go in and get it done.
 
StanN45 said:
Are the test preps that are out there now, like the Sporty's Study Buddy, are they applicable and reliable for study purposes with the new test. I know that the questions and answers may be different, but as long as a person understands the theory and the principles, is it really that different? I mean, that should be the intent, not just to memorize the question and answers, right? Or am I missing something here? I'm anxious to hear from someone that has recently tested with the new ACS test. I am right next to being ready to go in and get it done.
Click to expand...
I think they(the new test designers) have claimed that they were removing some of the more useless trick questions. I would think the old question bank should still be useful as a learning/practice tool. I imagine they'll update sporty's questions/supplement images at some point.
 
I've heard that the questions for tail draggers are gone, same with some of the old DME/ADF questions. Pure hearsay at this point..... I just can't see how many ways you can ask questions about FAR's, weather, W/B charts, navigation, etc. As long as you know the principle behind it,,,,,I don't know, I'm just trying to convince myself too! LOL!
 
Here is an article about the ACS and what it is meant to improve, whether it delivers or how different it is compared to last week, who knows. Its John King venting about some of the sillyness on the old test.

http://www.flyingmag.com/sky-kings-warding-off-tragedy-with-airman-certification-standards

I took the test last week, they gave me the new ACS supplement book by mistake, it was VERY similar to the prior supplement, although I had to go back and recheck everything once I got the right book(after pretty much finishing the test once). I didn't end up having to change many answers, but noticed airspace and obstruction changes on new versions of the maps. The map clarity and view-ability wasn't improved at all. The new supplement still has shrunken sectionals that you're supposed to be able to read fine details from.
 
Last edited:
StanN45 said:
Are the test preps that are out there now, like the Sporty's Study Buddy, are they applicable and reliable for study purposes with the new test. I know that the questions and answers may be different, but as long as a person understands the theory and the principles, is it really that different?
Click to expand...

Study Buddy has not been updated in probably years. For example, it still has the question that says you order ACs from the Govt. Printing Office. This question was changed at least a year ago so that the correct answer is now "download from the internet". Not a huge deal, but if try memorizing answers, Study Buddy may help you memorize some that are wrong.

I just checked the Sporty's private pilot course (they sent out an email today saying their course was ACS compliant). Well, their test questions still use the old Test Supplement so they certainly haven't done anything to update their question database. I suspect they would catch this and correct it soon enough, but check the VOR indicator figures in any testing tool you are using to ensure you at least have the latest materials. They will have an affect on some questions.

The bottom line is that if you know your stuff, you will still do well on the written test. These issues are more examples of why you don't want to memorize answers.
 
When I've seen some obvious supplement updates, the new figures have been in addition to the old, not instead of.

As recently as last year, the instrument airplane test had two supplement volumes.
 
write-stuff said:
As we all know, the "new" Private Pilot written test started this week. At this early stage there is no way of knowing precisely what new questions have been added, but the new Knowledge Test Supplement can give us some clues. It does include some changes that are guaranteed to result in new questions. Whatever you are using to take practice tests, use this simple check to confirm that the questions have been updated, at the very least, to use the new Knowledge Test Supplement. Find the VOR questions and look at the graphic indicator shown in the Figures. It should look like the figure on the right:

old-vs-new.jpg
Click to expand...
Off topic here, but what's the purpose in hiding part of the azimuth at 3&9 o'clock, on the middle one?
 
exncsurfer said:
Here is an article about the ACS and what it is meant to improve, whether it delivers or how different it is compared to last week, who knows. Its John King venting about some of the sillyness on the old test.

http://www.flyingmag.com/sky-kings-warding-off-tragedy-with-airman-certification-standards
Click to expand...

Good article.

But I'm afraid that this ACS is not (quite) solving the right problem. The FAA has no accountability when it comes to its written test questions. Not publishing the questions anymore only makes this problem worse. So now with the focus on risk management we get something like this turd of a question:

FAA said:
The destination airport has one runway, 8-26, and the wind is calm. The normal approach in calm wind is a left hand pattern to runway 08. There is no other traffic at the airport. A thunderstorm about 6 miles west is beginning its mature stage, and rain is starting to reach the ground. The pilot decides to

A. fly the pattern to runway 8 since the storm is too far away to affect the wind at the airport.
B. fly the normal pattern to runway 8 since the storm is west and moving north and any unexpected wind will be from the east or southeast toward the storm.
C. fly an approach to runway 26 since any unexpected wind due to the storm will be westerly.
Click to expand...
 
Better graphics with greater visibility. The digits and alphabets were not that visible and attractive compare to current one. Even it is also better for practicals.
 
dmspilot said:
Good article.

But I'm afraid that this ACS is not (quite) solving the right problem. The FAA has no accountability when it comes to its written test questions. Not publishing the questions anymore only makes this problem worse. So now with the focus on risk management we get something like this turd of a question:
Click to expand...
I think that is still an old question, but I agree the wording is terrible. For C. they should have said: "will be to the west of the airport"
 
write-stuff said:
As we all know, the "new" Private Pilot written test started this week. ...
Click to expand...

Have you seen a question regarding who(not when or how many days) you are required to report an alcohol conviction to? I recently missed that one and it was worded in a way that I hadn't seen before. My ASA test prep book does not have a study question with exact wording of the question that I got on my exam. I can't remember the exact wording but it was basically:
After an alcohol related conviction you must:
A) Report the conviction to govt. agency blah blah blah within 30 days
B) Report the conviction to an Aviation Medical Examiner within 60 days.
C) Report the conviction to the FAA Security Division within 60 days.

Me not being an encyclopedia of regulations, I had to resort to reasoning on this one(which didn't work for me). A) was easy to throw out because I did remember the 60 day part. C) I figured, now thats dumb what does Security have to do with Alcoholics so I went with B, which looked odd but best out of the choices).

That seems like a pretty dirty trick they pulled with that one, and quite the useless question for either the non-alcoholic or even for the alcoholic that knows how to look up a regulation when they screw up.

The example question in my ASA book that is similar seems more fair in that you only have to know the 60 day part and that you report it to a govt. agency(given in the question). Even though that is still silly to want someone to memorize when It will need to be researched anyway if the time ever comes, unless you memorize the address and phone# for the agency as well! The answer choices should really be, A) report to FAA Civil Aviation Security Division within 60 days, B) You do not have to report alcohol convictions, C) divert your airship to give way to the 152 towing a glider.

So guys going in don't forget, alcohol convictions report to:
FAA Civil Aviation Security Division 60 DAYS
 
Did the rest of the exam seem to be reasonably close to the "old" test preps? Other than the example that you talked about, what was your overall impression?
 
StanN45 said:
Did the rest of the exam seem to be reasonably close to the "old" test preps? Other than the example that you talked about, what was your overall impression?
Click to expand...
I took the old exam a week before the new one came out. I don't know if that question is still in there or not. They did, however, give me the new supplement book by mistake and I took the whole exam with the wrong supplement so I can't imagine its that much different.
 
exncsurfer said:
Have you seen a question regarding who(not when or how many days) you are required to report an alcohol conviction to? I recently missed that one and it was worded in a way that I hadn't seen before. My ASA test prep book does not have a study question with exact wording of the question that I got on my exam. I can't remember the exact wording but it was basically:
After an alcohol related conviction you must:
A) Report the conviction to govt. agency blah blah blah within 30 days
B) Report the conviction to an Aviation Medical Examiner within 60 days.
C) Report the conviction to the FAA Security Division within 60 days.

Me not being an encyclopedia of regulations, I had to resort to reasoning on this one(which didn't work for me). A) was easy to throw out because I did remember the 60 day part. C) I figured, now thats dumb what does Security have to do with Alcoholics so I went with B, which looked odd but best out of the choices).

That seems like a pretty dirty trick they pulled with that one, and quite the useless question for either the non-alcoholic or even for the alcoholic that knows how to look up a regulation when they screw up.

The example question in my ASA book that is similar seems more fair in that you only have to know the 60 day part and that you report it to a govt. agency(given in the question). Even though that is still silly to want someone to memorize when It will need to be researched anyway if the time ever comes, unless you memorize the address and phone# for the agency as well! The answer choices should really be, A) report to FAA Civil Aviation Security Division within 60 days, B) You do not have to report alcohol convictions, C) divert your airship to give way to the 152 towing a glider.

So guys going in don't forget, alcohol convictions report to:
FAA Civil Aviation Security Division 60 DAYS
Click to expand...
Wish I read this before last Saturday. That's one of the 4 I missed, and indeed, it's a stupid question for the reason you stated. Knowing weight and balance is a good thing, knowing the time between the last drink and being able to fly is a good thing, and being able to read a sectional chart is a good thing.

Knowing how many hours in an airplane type/model you need to tow a glider... (another one I missed) well, I can look that up, can't I? Plus, the answers were equally obtuse. 100 or 200 hours? If it were 100 or 10, then maybe... but having twice the time you need as an answer is just seeing what you can remember, plus if you never care to tow a glider, it's probably better to focus attention on more important things, like what thunderstorms do, how they act, and how far to stay away from them. (whether you are towing a glider or not...)
 
StanN45 said:
Did the rest of the exam seem to be reasonably close to the "old" test preps? Other than the example that you talked about, what was your overall impression?
Click to expand...
Overall, it was pretty good. I took it on Saturday (6/25), and I'd rather they have more weight and balance and stuff you need in the cockpit, rather than stuff you can look up.

The one duh! question I had was about an obstruction NE of an airport. There were multiple airports in the area, and I was looking at the one above the words identifying it. The nearest obstruction was 15 NM away, and I'm thinking, "what the ...?" After reviewing it for about 10 minutes, I marked it and came back to it, and going over the test a second time, I saw what I was missing: The name of the airport was over it, not under it, and there was the obstruction.

About 80% were ones I had seen before in the Jeppesen Ready to Fly! book, in the FAA notes. The rest I learned by applying principles, which you can't do for memorizing rules. (like the 60 day drunk driving one)
 
I got the "which agency do you report to" question wrong. What a waste of a question on a knowledge test.
 
write-stuff said:
As we all know, the "new" Private Pilot written test started this week. At this early stage there is no way of knowing precisely what new questions have been added, but the new Knowledge Test Supplement can give us some clues. It does include some changes that are guaranteed to result in new questions. Whatever you are using to take practice tests, use this simple check to confirm that the questions have been updated, at the very least, to use the new Knowledge Test Supplement. Find the VOR questions and look at the graphic indicator shown in the Figures. It should look like the figure on the right:

old-vs-new.jpg
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I still have the middle one in my plane.
 
exncsurfer said:
Have you seen a question regarding who(not when or how many days) you are required to report an alcohol conviction to? I recently missed that one and it was worded in a way that I hadn't seen before. My ASA test prep book does not have a study question with exact wording of the question that I got on my exam. I can't remember the exact wording but it was basically:
After an alcohol related conviction you must:
A) Report the conviction to govt. agency blah blah blah within 30 days
B) Report the conviction to an Aviation Medical Examiner within 60 days.
C) Report the conviction to the FAA Security Division within 60 days.

Me not being an encyclopedia of regulations, I had to resort to reasoning on this one(which didn't work for me). A) was easy to throw out because I did remember the 60 day part. C) I figured, now thats dumb what does Security have to do with Alcoholics so I went with B, which looked odd but best out of the choices).

That seems like a pretty dirty trick they pulled with that one, and quite the useless question for either the non-alcoholic or even for the alcoholic that knows how to look up a regulation when they screw up.

The example question in my ASA book that is similar seems more fair in that you only have to know the 60 day part and that you report it to a govt. agency(given in the question). Even though that is still silly to want someone to memorize when It will need to be researched anyway if the time ever comes, unless you memorize the address and phone# for the agency as well! The answer choices should really be, A) report to FAA Civil Aviation Security Division within 60 days, B) You do not have to report alcohol convictions, C) divert your airship to give way to the 152 towing a glider.

So guys going in don't forget, alcohol convictions report to:
FAA Civil Aviation Security Division 60 DAYS
Click to expand...

That one is FAR 61.15 and they'd say you're supposed to know Part 61 for the written.

(Not saying it's not obviously written as a stumper, but FARs are fair game on any written...)

Frankly I didn't know that was in Part 61 when I started studying for the FIA either and that question was on my FIA written too.

(Even though they say the ACS hasn't affected or been applied to the FIA or FII rating yet. Yeah... Right... Haha.)
 
Oh and I'll actually say something nice about the new supplement book. It's printed well and doesn't look like it came off of a 70s mimeograph machine.

The downside is, the higher resolution graphics don't work well at all on PSIs old computers. Just crack the book and look there. The graphics on-screen are now often unreadable because FAA went up to much higher res graphics and the standard for the test computer's graphics capabilities is really really low.
 
The sectional chart Figures are much blurrier than they were in the previous KTS. They're awful in PDF form, but I haven't seen the hardcopy booklet yet.
 
write-stuff said:
The sectional chart Figures are much blurrier than they were in the previous KTS. They're awful in PDF form, but I haven't seen the hardcopy booklet yet.
Click to expand...

They're gorgeous in the physical book. It appears the fail is somewhere in the digital process like they can't disseminate the graphics as printed for some reason.

Well on the test computers it's because they're crappy ancient machines. But from the website this stuff should look better. Weird.
 
"...For example, it still has the question that says you order ACs from the Govt. Printing Office. This question was changed at least a year ago so that the correct answer is now "download from the internet"..."

Got that one wrong too but I still passed.
 
I personally never had an issue with "stumper" questions (which I define as any question I don't know the answer to :D) on the FAA knowledge test.

Whether the FAA officially publishes the questions or not, the knowledge test is ultimately a multiple guess test prepared for by (1) drilling the questions and answers in advance (aka cramming); (2) taking the test as soon as one can after cramming, to hopefully spit out the rote answers before; (3) forgetting the stuff. I've always thought it was designed more to cull out those who should not be near things with moving parts (those with true test-taking disabilities aside) than to mess with the test-taker.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I personally never had an issue with "stumper" questions (which I define as any question I don't know the answer to :D) on the FAA knowledge test.

Whether the FAA officially publishes the questions or not, the knowledge test is ultimately a multiple guess test prepared for by (1) drilling the questions and answers in advance (aka cramming); (2) taking the test as soon as one can after cramming, to hopefully spit out the rote answers before; (3) forgetting the stuff. I've always thought it was designed more to cull out those who should not be near things with moving parts (those with true test-taking disabilities aside) than to mess with the test-taker.
Click to expand...
I would still rather them have relevant questions. Like to find out if you can remember stuff that is worth remembering.
 
exncsurfer said:
I would still rather them have relevant questions. Like to find out if you can remember stuff that is worth remembering.
Click to expand...
I think that questions of rote memorization are idiotic for things that are not, or never will be critical. Knowing where to report drunk driving is a "I have to look this up when I sober up and get out of jail" type question, not a "Oh crap, I need to know this because I'm in IMC, and I need to know the difference between to/from on a VOR to know where I'm going."
 
Jeffythequick said:
I think that questions of rote memorization are idiotic for things that are not, or never will be critical. Knowing where to report drunk driving is a "I have to look this up when I sober up and get out of jail" type question, not a "Oh crap, I need to know this because I'm in IMC, and I need to know the difference between to/from on a VOR to know where I'm going."
Click to expand...
Right, they could even ask you if it has to be reported, that is at least relevant I'd say, but to memorize the name of the agency you must report it to and pick it out of a lineup of 3 similar sounding perps, silly.
 
Jeffythequick said:
I think that questions of rote memorization are idiotic for things that are not, or never will be critical. Knowing where to report drunk driving is a "I have to look this up when I sober up and get out of jail" type question, not a "Oh crap, I need to know this because I'm in IMC, and I need to know the difference between to/from on a VOR to know where I'm going."
Click to expand...

Yeah but even those questions are crap...

"Here's a page full of OBS' set in ways nobody actually trying to utilize the things would ever set them or their instructor would wonder if they had brain damage. Where are you, if you're using OBS number 6?"
 
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