Written exam scheduled

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railroader312

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railroader312
Hi all my first post here. Been cruising the site throughout my whole training and has been very helpful. Alot of knowledge here. I have 35 hours and on my last cross country. I have my written exam friday at 4pm. I have been using the ground school app on my i pad from dauntless aviation to practice. I have been getting 85-95% on practice tests. I would like to know what im allowed to bring with me to the test and any advice you may have. Thanks in advance!
 
railroader312 said:
Hi all my first post here. Been cruising the site throughout my whole training and has been very helpful. Alot of knowledge here. I have 35 hours and on my last cross country. I have my written exam friday at 4pm. I have been using the ground school app on my i pad from dauntless aviation to practice. I have been getting 85-95% on practice tests. I would like to know what im allowed to bring with me to the test and any advice you may have. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

This link takes you to the AC that tells you exactly what you can take.

Allowed test materials
 
Welcome to the board,good luck on the test.
 
One thing I took that was helpful was a small sheet of clear acetate with two thin lines drawn on it at 90 degree angles.

Helped follow the grids on those convoluted performance charts
 
The sectional charts in the testing supplement are not the same scale as actual sectionals. If you have to measure distance on any of them make sure you use the scale on the chart and not the scale on your plotter.
 
My advice that worked well for me on both my PPL and IFR:

You can skip around and "mark" questions. Go through and answer all the softball questions first...skip anything you are not 100% sure of and skip all questions that need calculations. This will help build your confidence. Then go back and hit the questions that do not need calculations...mark any you are not positive on. Then go do the calculation questions. Once you do the calculations, go back and review your marked questions and often going through that process of all the other questions will jog your memory to help provide the answer.

Although you can not take in notes, you can however MAKE notes once you start. I reviewed my notes right before I went in then first thing I did when the test started was make notes on things like UNOS, to/from VOR cheat sheet and anything else I though I might need...then started the test.
 
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1. The testing supplements can be found online. Find them and become familiar with the information in the front, especially the legends and other useful errata. Many questions posed on the exam come straight from the information printed there, lessening the stress to remember some of the details.

2. Quit studying the night before and have a relaxing evening, then a good night's sleep. Eat a good breakfast. Being well rested and properly fueled goes a long way for test performance.
 
My advice is to take your time. I read each question twice, checked and checked again my calculations. Spent even more time on navigation / VOR questions. I also tried to answer the question before reading the multiple choice options.
 
JCranford said:
One thing I took that was helpful was a small sheet of clear acetate with two thin lines drawn on it at 90 degree angles.

Helped follow the grids on those convoluted performance charts
Click to expand...

This is good advice. Those performance charts can be a pain when your eyes are tired.


As for the test itself main advice is to just take your time. While it is timed (2.5 hours) you really shouldn't be under any serious time pressure. Everyone has their own approach, but this worked for me:

A few days before the test I went through my practice test booklet and highlighted any questions that tripped me up. Based on these questions I prepared a 'study sheet' of notes to focus on the items that I had issues with. The act of writing these down and then reviewing them a few times afterwards got my brain in shape on these items that had been tripping me up.

It was mostly the random multi-choice either you know it or you don't questions that this focused on--e.g., knowing that if you're busted for DUI it's the aviation security office and not the medical office that needs to be notified (this actually then came up on my actual exam).

I reviewed these notes a few times leading up to the exam, although didn't go nuts as cramming doesn't help.

During the exam itself:

1st pass through questions, skip and mark any questions that required calculations or interpolations, just focusing on answering the multi-choice questions. If I was not 100% sure of the answer I put what I thought was the answer and marked it for later review.

2nd pass go back and answer all the questions requiring calculations. Again if not 100% sure of the answer I keep it marked for review.

3rd pass focus on all the questions that I had marked for review for either not knowing the answer or not being 100% sure of my answer. Hopefully this isn't a huge number of questions at at this point you can relax a bit (knowing that even if you get every one of these wrong hopefully that still translates into a decent score).

Before submitting I just looked over everything once more quickly.

If you miss anything you'll be allowed to see the questions you missed, although they won't show you the correct answer.

Good luck!
 
I was stripped naked before I was allowed to take my written. Good luck! Although I believe you may take in your plotter (but they will likely check it for marks). My reckoning is that your actual score will come in about 5-10% lower than your practice scores. You should be fine. Get your sleep, eat a decent breakfast, and have fun!

ps: you get an opportunity after the test to give feedback on any questions that you felt had issues. Take notes on those questions so you can give specific feedback. I did so on one question.
 
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