1,001 questions about the ASTB (post your scores & ask your questions here!)

[Meddaughgerald]

I have everything I need for the next SNA/NFO board, but I am wondering if I should retake with 52 6/7/7 ?? Seeing people with 8's and a few 9's is making me feel very self-conscious lol. I have a solid GPA and flight experience but idk if it will make up for lack of 1 or 2 points on the ASTB.

Dont retake.... was selected just recently with a 49 6,7,7. I thi k you will be just fine

 

[JHazz.117]

Okay, thank you.

I found this in some Navy manual from 2015, but I can't source it, I just snipped the photo.
Taking the ASTB for the second time tomorrow after getting 60 5-5-5 the first time. Used Kyle's ASTB kit much more this time. Going into it, I regret not spending more time memorizing ANIT stuff. That's an easy way to improve your SNA score.

 

[Austin-AJA]

This is what I was looking for thank you.

 

[mjb927]

Scores: 56 6/7/7

Study Material:
Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests prep book
ASTB 2020-2021 Test Prep Book
Kahn Academy
Organic Chemistry Tutor
Kyles's ASTB Guide
Holly's ASTB Guide
FAA Handbook

Math:
Lots of word problems involving DRT, probability, average, how much time it'll take for 2 people to complete a task, and simplifying radicals.

My biggest recommendation for this section is to get the basics down pat. To be honest there were a good number of problems that didn't look exactly like the problems that I practiced. Do as many practice problems as you can and get very comfortable with them so that you know you'll get those ones right on the test. That way you can quickly answer those ones and spend more time working through harder ones.

Reading:
As everyone else has mentioned previously, this section is full of some dry material. Do your best to stay engaged and focused. Also, be sure to keep and eye on the timer. I actually timed out before I answered all the questions (maybe had only 1 or 2 more to go, though)

Mechanical:
Pulley systems, throw a ball and dropping a ball at the same time- which one hit's ground first (answer: they both hit ground at same time because horizontal motion doesn't affect rate of fall), mass of an object on the moon versus the Earth, how much force would be needed to lift an object in a pulley system, what happens to velocity in narrow section of venture tube, which point of a trajectory would have the greatest velocity, and one question.

I maybe had 1 question that involved actually calculating something...the rest was concepts. So be sure to study concepts.

ANIT:
I used the cram flashcard set, read the test prep books, and studied the FAA manual (see study guides in this thread for the highlighted sections).

Some examples of questions were what plane escorted bombers in WWII, who do the commanders of the carrier air wing report to, how aircraft carriers were modified to accommodate heavy aircraft such as the F-14, and a question "You're DME from the VORTAC, what's your issue?" The answer choices were in nautical miles not statute miles, in statute miles not nautical miles, in kilometers, and something about slope distance. I guessed and chose slope distance. I'm sure someone here that's smarter than I am can give the correct answer.

NATFI:
Just like everyone else says...these questions are strange. Pick the answer that best suites you and I'd suggest not overthinking it.

UAV Test:
I used the online UAV practice flashcards from pro profs....However, when it came to the real exam, the perspective of the parking lots differed from the simulator and it confused me at times. There were a few that I answered incorrectly and a few that took longer than 3 seconds to answer. For instance, they may have you heading 110 degrees (which is South East), but because the heading isn't directly between East and South (135 degrees), when you re-orientate your compass (using the UAV trick that everyone references) it sometimes is confusing what parking lot is correct.

Practice the UAV trick and do your best.

Dichotic Listening Test:
I used the "lean into the target-ear" method and I feel like it helped. I also took a piece of my scratch paper, drew a line down the middle, and labeled each side as "ODD" or "EVEN" with an arrow point to the respective sides.

Tracking & Emergency Scenarios Test:
As many people (especially those without much simulator experience say) this section can make you feel super incompetent.

The vertical and joystick tracking went relatively smoothly. The target jumps across the screen at varying speeds so it can be difficult to keep up with it. Additionally, the target is on a 2D plane and I moved the joystick in the wrong direction for UP/DOWN a few times even though I was prepared for the inverted axis.

Things started getting a little crazy when the dichotic listening was added back in. I focused on the dichotic listening as that was the new part. Honestly, I was probably "on-target" less than 20% of the time.

I wrote down the emergency scenarios, the knob positions, and what fingers corresponded to what knobs. When an emergency happened, I was able to quickly respond to it. Again, the tracking was the hard part here. I would focus on the joystick target and the vertical target would be way off and vice versa. After the three emergency scenarios, there's a short period of just tracking.


One other thing I'd like to mention is that I got myself a tutor from Varsity Tutors to prep for this. I served 6 years active duty as a Navy Officer (non-pilot) and am still in the Reserves. I had a decent amount of experience in anything involving nautical information but what really helped me was connecting with a 20+ year retired Navy Nuclear Officer (and if anyone is familiar with the Navy Nuke program, you'll know it's full of the smartest dudes and girls that the branch has) who tutors guys and girls in ASTB test prep (among other subjects). He found tons of extra study material for me to work through and helped me improve my understanding of concepts, speed of answering questions, etc.

In my opinion, it's good to be humble and ask for help in preparing for this test.

If anyone is interested in connecting with him, please direct message me and I'll make the introduction.

For all of you that are not prior service and have been selected out of your boards, enjoy the Navy experience. It will be the best decision you've ever made and will positively change your life forever!

 

[Korean-Lightning]

Hello everyone, I took the OAR for the first time two weeks ago and am gunning for the April SWO board. I scored a 54. I spent the night before in a hotel cramming which gave me the worst headache I've had in years. Then my room's smoke alarm started beeping due to low battery at 1am (stopped after ~20 minutes). I ate a light breakfast and arrived at the testing location early.

Math Section: It's been about ten years since I last took a math class (in high school). I studied pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, and probability by blasting through Khan Academy courses starting about two weeks before taking the test (not enough studying, don't do this). I studied logarithms but never encountered a question on them, probably because the adaptive test knew it wasn't worth probing that deep. Overall I think guessed on ~1/3 of the math section, which made me feel dumb and even more stressed. I didn't use any of the equations they provided on the right-hand margin. I can't remember if I technically ran out of time on this section or if I was just spamming guesses toward the end and hoped I'd finish on time, but it was a near thing.

Reading Section: I didn't study for this but it doesn't look like many people study for it anyway. The questions were dry and very specific and the test even warns you that they're looking for answers that can be inferred only through the text and without any assumptions. I actually ran out of time here but I feel like I killed it, I never felt like I was guessing like in the math section. It's obvious to me that my performance here likely picked up the slack from my math section.

Mechanical Section: I spent two nights cramming basic physics concepts like mechanical advantage, velocity, Bernoulli's equation, Pascal's principle, simple circuits, etc. using Khan Academy and Googling. Only had maybe one or two questions that I had to do any calculations on, both mechanical advantage questions. I reviewed all simple machines the night before but was only given multiple questions on levers, no others. One question on Kelvin conversion, a few on kinetic/potential energy, no questions on circuits. I didn't run out of time on this section and guessed way less than the math section; almost all the questions were on concepts which is awesome.

I wanted a higher score but my preparation was terrible and I'm lucky I scored what I did. Though it mostly worked out fine in the end, my anxiety was through the roof before and during the test. If I have to retake it to improve my SWO application then I'll find some dedicated study materials/guides and work off them instead of Khan Academy as the video instructor takes forever to walk through problems.

 

[Fable0027]

Scores: 56 6/7/7

Study Material:
Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests prep book
ASTB 2020-2021 Test Prep Book
Kahn Academy
Organic Chemistry Tutor
Kyles's ASTB Guide
Holly's ASTB Guide
FAA Handbook

Math:
Lots of word problems involving DRT, probability, average, how much time it'll take for 2 people to complete a task, and simplifying radicals.

My biggest recommendation for this section is to get the basics down pat. To be honest there were a good number of problems that didn't look exactly like the problems that I practiced. Do as many practice problems as you can and get very comfortable with them so that you know you'll get those ones right on the test. That way you can quickly answer those ones and spend more time working through harder ones.

Reading:
As everyone else has mentioned previously, this section is full of some dry material. Do your best to stay engaged and focused. Also, be sure to keep and eye on the timer. I actually timed out before I answered all the questions (maybe had only 1 or 2 more to go, though)

Mechanical:
Pulley systems, throw a ball and dropping a ball at the same time- which one hit's ground first (answer: they both hit ground at same time because horizontal motion doesn't affect rate of fall), mass of an object on the moon versus the Earth, how much force would be needed to lift an object in a pulley system, what happens to velocity in narrow section of venture tube, which point of a trajectory would have the greatest velocity, and one question.

I maybe had 1 question that involved actually calculating something...the rest was concepts. So be sure to study concepts.

ANIT:
I used the cram flashcard set, read the test prep books, and studied the FAA manual (see study guides in this thread for the highlighted sections).

Some examples of questions were what plane escorted bombers in WWII, who do the commanders of the carrier air wing report to, how aircraft carriers were modified to accommodate heavy aircraft such as the F-14, and a question "You're DME from the VORTAC, what's your issue?" The answer choices were in nautical miles not statute miles, in statute miles not nautical miles, in kilometers, and something about slope distance. I guessed and chose slope distance. I'm sure someone here that's smarter than I am can give the correct answer.

NATFI:
Just like everyone else says...these questions are strange. Pick the answer that best suites you and I'd suggest not overthinking it.

UAV Test:
I used the online UAV practice flashcards from pro profs....However, when it came to the real exam, the perspective of the parking lots differed from the simulator and it confused me at times. There were a few that I answered incorrectly and a few that took longer than 3 seconds to answer. For instance, they may have you heading 110 degrees (which is South East), but because the heading isn't directly between East and South (135 degrees), when you re-orientate your compass (using the UAV trick that everyone references) it sometimes is confusing what parking lot is correct.

Practice the UAV trick and do your best.

Dichotic Listening Test:
I used the "lean into the target-ear" method and I feel like it helped. I also took a piece of my scratch paper, drew a line down the middle, and labeled each side as "ODD" or "EVEN" with an arrow point to the respective sides.

Tracking & Emergency Scenarios Test:
As many people (especially those without much simulator experience say) this section can make you feel super incompetent.

The vertical and joystick tracking went relatively smoothly. The target jumps across the screen at varying speeds so it can be difficult to keep up with it. Additionally, the target is on a 2D plane and I moved the joystick in the wrong direction for UP/DOWN a few times even though I was prepared for the inverted axis.

Things started getting a little crazy when the dichotic listening was added back in. I focused on the dichotic listening as that was the new part. Honestly, I was probably "on-target" less than 20% of the time.

I wrote down the emergency scenarios, the knob positions, and what fingers corresponded to what knobs. When an emergency happened, I was able to quickly respond to it. Again, the tracking was the hard part here. I would focus on the joystick target and the vertical target would be way off and vice versa. After the three emergency scenarios, there's a short period of just tracking.


One other thing I'd like to mention is that I got myself a tutor from Varsity Tutors to prep for this. I served 6 years active duty as a Navy Officer (non-pilot) and am still in the Reserves. I had a decent amount of experience in anything involving nautical information but what really helped me was connecting with a 20+ year retired Navy Nuclear Officer (and if anyone is familiar with the Navy Nuke program, you'll know it's full of the smartest dudes and girls that the branch has) who tutors guys and girls in ASTB test prep (among other subjects). He found tons of extra study material for me to work through and helped me improve my understanding of concepts, speed of answering questions, etc.

In my opinion, it's good to be humble and ask for help in preparing for this test.

If anyone is interested in connecting with him, please direct message me and I'll make the introduction.

For all of you that are not prior service and have been selected out of your boards, enjoy the Navy experience. It will be the best decision you've ever made and will positively change your life forever!

Thank you for the info! For the math section, did you study any of the material posted on here? If so, were there any questions you saw from air warrior guides on the test itself? Maybe not exact questions, but maybe variables are switched around?

 

[Tommyboy44]

Score: 60 8/8/8
First attempt without studying, I am not saying that to try to sound all big and bad (because I am not), just goes to show that if you are careful and focus you can do well. On questions that I did not understand the content for I just tried to think about it logically and there were a couple of questions where I worked backward from the answers.

2.78 GPA
21 Years old
Finance Degree
Pro-Rec SNA for 10 May 2020

 

[mjb927]

Thank you for the info! For the math section, did you study any of the material posted on here? If so, were there any questions you saw from air warrior guides on the test itself? Maybe not exact questions, but maybe variables are switched around?

I did study a lot of math questions I found on the study guides on here (Kyle’s and Holly’s). The best questions I found were on the OAR Math Study Guide document (again, this is within Kyle’s or Holly’s google drive folder). There are about 114 questions on the OAR Math Study guide and it’s broken down by category of problem (ie: probability, percentages, DRT, etc) so it is easy to see where your problem areas are and what you’re doing well on. I’d say about half or 3/4 of the questions I had on the test were problems I had seen before (different numbers obviously, though). The rest of them were ones that I had not seen before. The way I see it, do as many problems as you can so you can increase your chances of getting those quickly correct on the actual test. Then for the rest of them, you’ll have to take more time to see if you can identify how to set them up. Hope this helps!

 

[wildepana1]

Hello, Graduating in one year with BA in CS. Took AOR first time with no practice and got a 45. Not happy with my score, not used to having to answer questions in a timed matter so ended up guessing a large amount. Retaking it in hopefully a month so will be doing lots of studying.

 

[Austin-AJA]

I would like to thank the earlier participants of this forum, as it was extremely helpful in my preparation for the ASTB. I am a recent college graduate with no aviation or military background and played a decent amount of video games when I was younger but would not consider myself a “gamer” in any sense. I took the test relatively recently and scored 69/9/8/9. While I did not initially plan on posting and most of what I have to say has more or less been stated in earlier posts, I feel obliged to detail my process and advice here considering how helpful this forum was to me.

Overall: I would say I began studying in earnest roughly 2-3 weeks before my exam. The number of hours per day varied considerably, however in the last week I studied rigorously and took a few days off of work to fully commit myself. While I tried to adequately prepare for every subtest, the ones that took up most of my study time were the Math, Mechanical, and ANIT portions. While how much studying is necessary/best varies by the individual, if you have made the decision that becoming a naval aviator is your truly your goal, I would advise erring on the side of “over-preparing”. My thought process was that I would rather look back and realize I studied more than I needed to than not prepare enough to get the necessary scores to be selected. I will also say that I was pleasantly surprised by how long each subtest took, I never felt like I was running out of time. Finally, I did not feel like I was doing especially well when I actually took the test, and was pleasantly surprised by my results, so if you feel as though you are not doing well do not be discouraged, keep doing your best, as you may only think you are doing worse than you actually are.

Test Day: All of this information will seem obvious/intuitive, but I think it is worth sharing. I made sure I got an adequate amount of sleep, stayed hydrated, and ate well in the two days before the exam. Around 9-10pm the night before, I stopped studying and made getting my mind into a relaxed, confident state the priority. I left for the exam quite early, to allow for possible traffic jams, car trouble, etc. I went to the bathroom just before the exam, and brought with me scratch paper, pens, water, snacks, tissues, a light jacket, and an analog watch, and made sure I had the proctor’s permission to have each item with me in the exam room. I also used the break period to stretch, walk around, go to the bathroom again, and do whatever was needed to stay in a constructive state of mind. Again, I am aware none of this advice seems especially insightful, but forgetting any one of them could potentially harm your results, so having a mental checklist like so can be helpful.

Study Materials: I will post the usefulness of the materials for each section in greater detail below. I have no prior aviation/flight sim experience, so I got a stick and throttle controller for my Xbox to get used to using such a controller, but honestly I did not use it that much and the controls in the exam are much bigger/heavier/clunky, so I would not consider this a necessity. Kyle’s guide (which I believe includes the Peterson’s materials) posted earlier in this forum is a godsend, probably the most useful of any one resource, and Barron’s prep book is also very useful. I also had Officer Candidate Tests for Dummies, which can also help but is clearly inferior to Barron’s if you only wish to purchase one book. For further information on specific information/concepts, plenty is available via quick, intuitive Youtube/Google searches.

Math: I majored in a social science in college, so even though I have generally been competent in STEM subjects throughout my education, it is certainly not my wheelhouse, so I studied this section rigorously to compensate. As posted by others, many of the preparation materials, such as Barron’s, are far too easy on this section. Kyle’s guide is generally more useful here. Concepts such as probability, exponents, logs, series, matrices, etc. were all areas that I needed to brush up on and were covered lightly if at all in some of the softer study materials. I would advise you to cover all of your bases in regards to both your theoretical understanding and being able to solve practice problems. When I found a subject to be especially tricky, searching for online resources, especially Khan Academy on Youtube, got me to where I believed I needed to be. While I was unsure of some of the problems on the actual test, I am sure that had I not been told that Barron’s, etc. were too soft and not done further preparation I would have gotten a significantly lower score.

Reading: My education background was relatively well-suited to this subtest, so I did not prepare for it as much as some of the others. I received no vocabulary questions, only inference. The material was, in fact, quite dry and Navy-specific, so reading some actual Navy materials that have been made available may be helpful in familiarizing yourself to the types of passages you will see here. I believe it is generally helpful to take the approach of taking the questions very literally (what are they actually saying as opposed to what are they alluding to). Practice tests in sources like Barron’s, etc. was how I did most of my preparation here.

Mechanical: Like the Math section, this subject is not my natural academic home so I studied for it quite a lot. Unlike the Math section, most of the widely-used study materials like Barron’s will prepare you pretty well, however again I would recommend using sources like Kyle’s guide. Cover areas like circuits, simple machines, basic physics/mechanical sciences, etc. Again, I used intuitive Google and Youtube searches if I felt like I needed further explanation on a particular concept. This subtest really is pretty straightforward, and unlike math I do not believe it runs the risk of certain, popular test materials leaving you largely unprepared. Build a strong theoretical understanding, execute the practice problems, and you should be fine.

ANIT: Again, I have no aviation/military background, so there was a lot I had to learn before the test. While there really is a lot of information out there to be potentially tested on, the good news is that this subtest measures “knowledge” not “aptitude”, so improvement here is quite attainable. I did not review the FAA materials, however I used Barron’s, Kyle’s guide, the ASTB Cram flashcards, and Google and Youtube searches if there was an area I felt like I needed additional explanation on. This, more than any other subtest, was where I thought I was getting killed, so if you think as you are doing poorly do not get discouraged, just do your best one question at a time.

NAFTI: This section takes an annoyingly long time, and some of the questions will definitely feel strange/uncomfortable. It is true that this is much less conventional than the earlier subtests and does not require substantial, traditional studying time, and the best piece of advice is to just answer the questions as honestly as possible. However, I actually think a little preparation could help here. Hopefully you have had the opportunity to meet/speak to some naval aviators or military personnel in general, and gotten a sense of how your specific character/personality can constructively fit into that larger community. What I did was just take a little time, certainly less than an hour, to undergo some personal reflection, and imagine that if there were an actual interview portion of this test, how I would want to present myself and what personal qualities I would want to emphasize (while still being truthful of course). Then, I tried to pick the responses that best conveyed those qualities.

UAV: I watched the Youtube video that was been posted several times in this forum, drew a compass rose, and practiced with some flashcards. If you do that, there will be absolutely no surprises on this subtest. I will say that while accuracy is obviously more important than speed, it would be hard for me to imagine that nearly every competitive applicant who adequately prepares does not get nearly every question right. Therefore, I would imagine most of the differentiation between potentially competitive applicants comes from speed, not accuracy. In other words, while accuracy is the most important thing here, speed is likely quite important too.

PBM: There is another Youtube video that has been posted earlier in the forum that does a good job of explaining what to expect in this subtest. I knew going into this one that it was going to feel hard, there were going to be moments where I felt was screwing up, so the most important thing was to stay calm, collected, and not to get discouraged, just keep doing as best as I could. You will also get some time between sections and some practice sections, which are very helpful if you use them to take a deep breath (literally and figuratively). The test will have you undergo a dichotic test of pressing the trigger/clutch when you hear even/odd numbers in the target ear, vertically track an airplane graphic with the throttle, and track a similar graphic across a 2-D field with the flight stick, and then combinations of those three. You will also have to undertake 3 emergency procedures while tracking with the throttle and flight stick. For the dichotic sections, I tilted my head in the direction of the target ear to give myself a mental cue. I also wrote down the emergency procedures on my scratch paper before the section that included them, which you will have plenty of time to do. During the sections that required me to do 2 or 3 of the tests at the same time, my priorities were 1. Dichotic/Emergency Procedures, 2. Flight Stick, 3. Throttle, though I still tried to do as best as I could on all three. The set up is right-handed and bigger/heavier than one might expect, so be mentally prepared for that if you are naturally left-handed and/or have skinny forearms like me. Again, I cannot emphasize enough how important staying calm and not getting discouraged is during this subtest; if I had to give just one piece of advice for the entire ASTB, it would be that.

BI-RV: Some of the materials out there still say this is part of the ASTB, however it was not given to me and I believe it is no longer part of the larger exam.


Sorry if this was excessively long, I wanted to be comprehensive. Again, study hard, get adequate rest, be calm and resilient during the test, and take it one question/section at a time and you will be fine. This forum was a true help to me in my preparation, so I am more than happy to answer questions people might have via a direct message. Best of luck to all who are preparing for this test and undertaking the larger process of becoming a military officer.

What in Kyles guide did you find most helpful? Was it the OAR math guide or a specific test because it seems the test questions vary a bit from test to test in the guide. Congrats on the excellent score and thank you for contributing to the forums.

 

[iancremeen]

Anyone know if they are still testing during this corona pandemic? I live in Dallas and I have been calling everywhere here and they're not testing at the moment... just curious

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

Anyone know if they are still testing during this corona pandemic? I live in Dallas and I have been calling everywhere here and they're not testing at the moment... just curious

It depends on which office. If you can’t test with the navy and are in a hurry, ask if you can test with the marines. It’s the same test.

 

[nyynyg]

What in Kyles guide did you find most helpful? Was it the OAR math guide or a specific test because it seems the test questions vary a bit from test to test in the guide. Congrats on the excellent score and thank you for contributing to the forums.

In terms of math, honestly once I realized the Barron's material was too "soft", I decided my best bet was to over-prepare and make sure I could do all the main types of questions Kyle's guide covered, so as I recall no one particular test was especially important. For the Mech and ANIT, I also used Kyle's overall material , but Barron's, etc. was more comparable than in the Math sections. For what it's worth, I did not study the actual FAA materials that were including in Kyle's ANIT section.

 

[Fable0027]

Does anyone have links to the UAV or Dichotic Listening Test simulator?

 

[wildepana1]

hey yall, I took my AOR about a month ago. But my recruiter said that they don't get the breakdown of the scores anymore?