(maybe I was supposed to post this on this thread, but I'm not sure. I also posted this to the ASTB-E/APEX Experience Thread)
Hey yall,
Just took the ASTB-E. I ended up getting a 60 7/8/7. I owe a lot of this to the forum , and I wanted to thank everyone who was willing to give up some of their time to share their experiences and give helpful advice. I might as well return the favor and tell how it went for me.
Study Materials:
Accept Inc. ASTB-E
Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests
http://www.futureofficer.com/downloads/ASTB_Personal_Study_Guide.pdf
Math: Math has always been my weakest subject, and I definitely struggled with this section the most. I ended up running out of time which had me a little worried before I got my scores. I saw a lot of probability questions. Some were very simple such as what are chances of rolling doubles if the combined value is greater than 4. Others had me stumped, and I spent way too much time on them. There was another multiple probability question (I wish I could remember exactly what it was) where I probably spent a good 8 minutes trying to figure it out. In the end, I just had to cut my losses and guess. My advice for difficult questions like that where you have little to no idea on how to approach it is to set a cutoff time for that problem. Maybe attempt a couple of methods that may lead to something, but after that give it a best estimate. Other than that, I saw problems that involved factoring, square roots, college level algebra, rates, and fractions with exponents.
Reading: I have always been pretty good at reading sections in tests, however I found myself having some difficulty. I had to really focus on these. Pay very close attention to the details (duhh). One thing I did that was maybe a little weird was put both my fingers in my ears when I was reading. You CANNOT get distracted in this section. More often than not, there is at least two answers that seem right at first glance. Other than that, there's not much I can say. I didn't study for this section at all, and I don't think it would have helped if I did.
Mechanical: I dedicated a lot of time studying for this section, more than I should have in fact. There were very basic questions. Know Bernoulli's Principle (how is lift generated from airfoils), levers (how far away does this force need to be away from the fulcrum to balance the lever), electrical theory (V=IR P=VI), gears (which gear moves faster, how many rotations will gear 2 have when gear 1 has 10 teeth and makes 10 rotations). It was also the shortest of the sections. I may have answered around ten questions.
Aviation and Nautical Information: Here I also spent a lot of time studying, but in this case it was well worth it. There was nothing too specific or technical but it covered a broad area of information. My two most difficult questions had something to do with class airspace, but other than that pretty basic stuff (what causes a plane to roll?). I've read on here that you should study up on Naval history as well. I only got one question involving history, and it was a basic one (Who broke the speed of sound?). I had no exposure to flying or ships before the test besides in my NROTC classes, so I needed to get at least the basic concept of everything down. I started by reading Accepted Inc's section and it was a good primer. It gave me a lot of good vocabulary, and told me what affects what on the plane (rudder = yaw, elevator = pitch). However it won't be enough. I would recommend Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests for the most coverage. There's a lot in there, and it's all useful. Also highly recommended this link which I got from here.
http://www.futureofficer.com/downloads/ASTB_Personal_Study_Guide.pdf (I unfortunately skipped the bit about studying airspace, and it bit me in the ass)
UAV Portion: Only thing I can say here is practice a lot before you get there. This is the one time in the test where you know exactly what kind of questions you're getting, and you can easily get all of them right in and around 3-4 seconds if you practice enough. I used these online flashcards (
http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/story.php?title=_36014), and practiced for maybe 2 hours before the test. Unfortunately for me I couldn't keep my concentration for the entire portion. I started missing a couple in a row because I began to worry that I was taking too long to get the answer right. I have a feeling that a right answer that took a few more seconds to get is worth more than a wrong answer in two so don't do what I did. Practice practice practice until you barely have to think about it.
Simulator:.........Jesus, this thing was brutal. Really don't know what to tell ya here. It's tough, but do your best. You will feel like you're sucking something awful while it's going on, just don't let it get to your head. My strategy was to prioritize. For example, when you're responsible for keeping both planes in your crosshairs while number/letters are being read in both of your ears. Before I even began, I prioritized the listening and entering the correct joystick/throttle inputs with the corresponding number. Next on my list was keeping my crosshair on the object moving in the two dimensional plane. Last on my list of priorities was the object moving up and down on the side of the screen. With the last, I completely relied on my peripherals and barely ever had the green crosshair (crosshair turns green when it's close enough to the target).
So I'm sure you guys are sick of getting this question, but I can't resist. I'm a Computer Science Major, GPA: 3.66 OAR: 60 AQR: 7 PFAR: 8 FOFAR: 7. Do you think that gives me a good shot on picking up a SNA slot? In classes before me, I've noticed a common trend of MIDN getting "press ganged" into the Nuclear Navy when there grades are
too good, especially with technical majors. At least in my unit, we are required to put down either Nuke Sub or Nuke Swo on our top five so it's a reasonable concern to have. What trends have you noticed in NROTC classes before you? Average GPAs? Average ASTB scores? etc.
Anyway ya that's pretty much it. I'm glad it's over because that thing was stressing me out. Hope my experience and advice helps all you future test takers out there (just try and get worse scores than me please
......kidding.....kinda...).
