I just got home from taking the ASTB-E and want to tell my experience while its fresh in my head. First off I want to thank everyone on this thread for all the help because the gouge on this forum is invaluable. There's a reason everyone on this thread says go back 100 pages and read is because that is what will help you succeed. Just find Kyles, Popeyes, the proprofs/cram flash cards and go over every single piece of information you can find. I also bought the Barrons book which I believe was helpful and the Gleim FAA Private Pilot book which I barely cracked open but did go through some of their questions which are relative to the test for sure. I spent roughly 1.5-2 months of prep for this exam and studied weekdays 3-5 hours a night taking off weekends then took off work my two days leading up to the exam to avoid all distractions. The second to last day I studied 8 hours and the day before I studied 4 hours tops(not by choice but had things come up preventing me from studying another 8hours).
Math:
This section is literally just a matter of how much work you put in doing practice problems. I spent the most time on this and the ANIT. I literally filled up half of a spiral notebook doing thousands of problems until I couldn't get them wrong. They can't really throw anything at you that you won't know if you properly prepare. Honestly I don't even think I got a problem wrong because I was familiar with every question asked. Although my OAR score might not reflect that, I think other factors were taken into account. I had questions about simplifying problems, drt, the calendar question "if three darts are thrown at a calendar with 31 days, whats the probability of them all landing on different days", I had other probablity questions, basic calculating averages questions, and some averages that were a little more complex than most the practice tests have. For example it gave me 4 numbers with their individual weights then asked what I would need to get on the last test of weigh x to score a certain grade. Nothing too complex but still different than the normal average questions. One that was a little weird but basic alegra was it said two cylinders have the same height but cylinder two is twice the volume. Then asked me to solve for height of the cylinder with double the volume(a little weird solving for height when they're the same, but just rearrange the volume formula basic algebra). I had one or two log problems but no matrices although I was full prepared, got kicked out with 7 minutes or so left.
Reading:
This section I didn't really study for at all because I felt my time would be better spent on math and the ANIT. I went through maybe 15 questions tops over my two months of studying. It seemed like the questions got pretty hard at some points and all the answer choices were almost identical. If you're studying for this I would definitely recommend using passages that look like massive run-on sentences that are super repetitive and confusing. I had some that were 10 lines long and it was one sentence just trying to confuse me by repeating the same thing with some random adjectives and goals thrown in. I'm not a big reader and never really liked these types of tests but it's really just narrowing down choices. I wrote out a,b,c,d and eliminated on tough ones. If you get to the run-on sentences that are about military stuff, I'd say you're doing well.
Mechanical:
I've always enjoyed studying phsyics and have had a natural nack for it so this section I didn't study a whole lot on. I did the Barron's book as well as a couple practice gouges found here but really focused on concepts and gears/pulley's. I didn't have any easy gear questions which probably meant I was heading the right direction. It actually gave me a binary question in this section which I thought was interesting because I expected to get that in math. Nonetheless I had prepped for binary and it was simple. I had two pulley questions one asking how much force would be required to pull the weight and another asking about what length of rope would be used. I felt decent on this but was hard to tell if I was doing good.
ANIT:
So I'd say I probably spent the most time studying for this part of the exam because I have zero flying experience and although I like war movies or American history, I wasn't familiar with a lot of the info this gauged. I didn't have any questions about the space program or anything the gouge mentions about first man in space, first in orbit, etc. I had the question about the me-262 being the first jet, first man to break the speed of sound Chuck Yeager(although my exam said Charles) I'm pretty sure thats still right but based on this definitely try to remember full names and years rather than just the first or last name. I had questions about parts of the boat and plane. I think I started to get a lot of this section right because then it asked me VFR questions and since I have no flying experience I obviously guessed on those since I didn't look into specific VFR rules. Most of the gouge is about components of a ship/plane and what they do, not the actual regulations. Another question asked "when an aileron pitches up, then angle of attack and pressure?" I put angle of attack is decreased and pressure increased since that would cause that wing to go down but not sure if thats right.
NATFI:
So I know this portion isn't talked about a whole bunch because there's no way to study for it or know which answer is better but I'm almost positive this is what brought down my AQR. My goal was 8's across the board and I'm pretty sure this one part of the test screwed that up for me. Idk what everyone thinks the questions going into the test are going to be but I thought it was going to be much more drastic and less of two evil questions. Mine were not like that at all and some that don't even relate. A few examples "people don't listen when you speak or you can achieve moderate goals", "you notice an unusual noise with your car or you talk back to your supervisor", "you would take lead in your group if it's failing or you believe you can achieve your goals", "You can be successful moving to a new city or you prefer to work alone". I'm not sure if it was just my test but I started to notice a lot of repetitive options. If I didn't choice an answer I would notice it would pop up several times again and sometimes I would see two choices together that I know I didn't choose prior. This meant to me that it was really trying to finite my personality. I also noticed that it was gauging I can be independent and would rather not do a group project so I and only I can dictate my grade. Since the AQR is considered your success at OCS I think the fact I "seemed" against groups in the test is why I didn't get an 8. This is just speculation but I definitely know what the exam was doing and it was obvious to me.
UAV:
I got all of these right on my test and averaged under 2 seconds. I never felt comfortable with the compass trick because I felt it took too long to orient the compass and it's easier for me to spin the picture in my mind. Most of the questions I answered in 1.3-1.7 seconds with a few outliers being 2.5-3 seconds because it was just oriented a way that I wasn't expecting and I wanted to think to make sure I was 100% right. I would definitely say that correctness is better than speed but in my case neither were really an issue. I had a lot of questions about this section before I took the test so I'll try my best to explain exactly how it works for anyone who was curious like me. So the flash cards with the satellite image pointing to the red dot are almost identical to the test. The only difference is on the yellow arrow the flashcards have, there is an extra arrow midway pointing the direction. They also aren't always perfectly at 45* like the flashcards are which is what caused some of my answers to take 2.5-3 seconds. This also means that the car parks shown on your screen will be oriented different. The map will be on the left and your carparks at the same height to the right and you phsyically click on the carpark of your choice. It will ask which car park on the headset and when you click the carpark it will show your reaction time as well as green or red for right or wrong. I'm pretty sure that you get to see the image before the timer starts, because I don't think the timer starts until the direction comes out of the headset. I noticed I was much faster on this exam than the flashcards.
PBM:
Dichotic-
For this part of the exam and during the tracking portion I actually pulled off the nontarget ear part of the headphones. I noticed that during my exam it definitely helped leaning when I had both on, but they would say the correct number quieter than all the other numbers making it harder. I literally took my hand off the throttle for a second to switch ears so I could get them right.
Tracking-
I was feeling pretty good up until this part of the exam lol. First it's throttle tracking up and down alone, then joystick alone, then together, then together with dichotic, then together with emergencies(no dichotic). I even bought a joystick so I could practice but I feel I was completely unprepared when the actual test came. I used a cheap flightmaster HOTUS X on my mac(completely not worthy for sims or games because it crashed every time and would lag), but I did find a game that was helpful called aim booster because being an outdated mac none of the aim lab or other aim trainers would work since my computer is slow. I feel this helped in the sense of getting me accustomed to the joystick but I couldn't find anything similar that uses both a joystick and throttle. I found a sim that I used but in a sim you're never going to be going up and down crazy fast with a throttle and sporadically all over the place with a joystick at the same time. The test is not fluid movements they go all over the place and made me feel like I had zero coordination. I was thinking during the test how I was gonna get a 2 or something bc I couldn't even match the joystick when it was alone, much less together. Focus on the dichotic portion as your priority and in the next stage do the emergencies as fast as possible. I completely stopped tracking to do the emergencies then once all three were cleared all I had to do was track which felt like it was never going to end.
Mouse accuracy trainer with lots of settings, so you can train exactly what you want to improve on.
www.aimbooster.com
My scores:
OAR: 58
AQR: 7
PFAR: 8
FOFAR: 8
My goal scores were 62 8/8/8 and I came pretty close but that one 7 really annoyed me because I'm almost positive I know what it came from too lol. Overally this exam is going to feel like your doing horrible at the end but stick with it. Bring snacks and a jacket because it was easily 60* in my room I even put my hood on. Everyone on here has been more than helpful to me so feel free to pm me with questions. This was my first and hopefully only attempt by the way. I didn't like the idea of most recent score instead of highest so I studied a ton to knock it out in one shot.
