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

How is the mechanical comprehension portion of the exam? Do I need to be studying and memorizing physics formulas? Such as kinetic and potential energy, momentum, impulse, and stuff like that. Or is it non math based?
 
For the dichotic listening portion, is a number in one ear always said in tandem with a letter in another? Or can you hear a number in each ear at the same time?
 

smpl_dude

Well-Known Member
From what I remember, for the mechanical portion, it wasn't a lot of math, mostly concepts. I used kyle's study guide and that was plenty for me. It'll be similar to what you'd see in an intro to physics course. As long as you understand the concepts behind gravity, momentum, mass, etc, you shouldn't have any problems on this portion.

The dichotic listening portion was a wild ride. There's letters and numbers coming at you from both ears. It's very difficult to prepare for. All I can stress is that you listen to the directions, only listen to the ear they tell you to listen to, and hit the button when they tell you to. And when it gets combined with the throttle and stick, I prioritized:
  1. Listening
  2. The stick
  3. The throttle
When I did this, I really did kind of zone out how other people have said. You just focus on listening, look at the 2d target, and keep the throttle target in your peripheral vision. Just focus on listening and do your best to track the targets at the same time.

It also really does help if you lean into whatever ear you're supposed to be listening to.
 
From what I remember, for the mechanical portion, it wasn't a lot of math, mostly concepts. I used kyle's study guide and that was plenty for me. It'll be similar to what you'd see in an intro to physics course. As long as you understand the concepts behind gravity, momentum, mass, etc, you shouldn't have any problems on this portion.

The dichotic listening portion was a wild ride. There's letters and numbers coming at you from both ears. It's very difficult to prepare for. All I can stress is that you listen to the directions, only listen to the ear they tell you to listen to, and hit the button when they tell you to. And when it gets combined with the throttle and stick, I prioritized:
  1. Listening
  2. The stick
  3. The throttle
When I did this, I really did kind of zone out how other people have said. You just focus on listening, look at the 2d target, and keep the throttle target in your peripheral vision. Just focus on listening and do your best to track the targets at the same time.

It also really does help if you lean into whatever ear you're supposed to be listening to.
Thank you, are you told what the target ear is?
 
Anyone know what a good score on the Janzen simulator would look like that translates to 9/9/9. And on what setting? Low med high difficulty?
 

FloridaDad

Well-Known Member
Anyone know what a good score on the Janzen simulator would look like that translates to 9/9/9. And on what setting? Low med high difficulty?
No idea but if you go to the original thread I just made a post about discovering how the resolution of your monitor will actually affect your score on that thing. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it still practice your butt off, but keep in mind that the scores others are posting may be on a very different set up and I saw a difference of 30ish points just by going from 1440p to 1050 resolution.

Also your performance on that particular test will only affect one of your score numbers (the PFAR). Your OAR and FOFAR aren't affected by that test as long as I'm not mistaken. The FOFAR is affected by how you do on the UAV sim. (Once again please correct me if I'm wrong guys).
 
No idea but if you go to the original thread I just made a post about discovering how the resolution of your monitor will actually affect your score on that thing. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it still practice your butt off, but keep in mind that the scores others are posting may be on a very different set up and I saw a difference of 30ish points just by going from 1440p to 1050 resolution.
Holy hell that's really good info. I have a 1440p monitor and was getting about 100s on the hardest settings. I began to feel like I couldn't do much better. I'll go read your original post.
 

FloridaDad

Well-Known Member
Holy hell that's really good info. I have a 1440p monitor and was getting about 100s on the hardest settings. I began to feel like I couldn't do much better. I'll go read your original post.
Dude I was having the same freak out until I moved it over to my smaller monitor on the side just to see if it made a difference lol
 
Dude I was having the same freak out until I moved it over to my smaller monitor on the side just to see if it made a difference lol
I also would like to know about the question you asked about being conditioned for odds and evens in a specific ear. From what I gather, it's random and the listening portion in the sim isn't like the real astb. Unfortunate.
 

FloridaDad

Well-Known Member
I also would like to know about the question you asked about being conditioned for odds and evens in a specific ear. From what I gather, it's random and the listening portion in the sim isn't like the real astb. Unfortunate.
I'm wondering if there's another program or app out there that does the dichotic listening but switches it up so we could run it at the same time we do the stick and throttle simulator. I'm finding that my music degree is finally actually useful for once in this process! In college we would have to listen to like 8 bars of music being played on the piano, and then write down exactly what was played on a piece of staff paper. All we would get was the root note of the key the piece starts in and then the professor would start playing. Up to like 4 different voices being tracked that may or may not be in rhythm and you have to identify the pitch (not just odds or evens). Add on top of that time spent learning to mix music and being aware of the spatial-ness of stereo sound and identifying what to put where in the mix. For once... I feel like my education actually prepped me for something on this darn test because this is so much easier than aural dictation of music! Now if only I minored in engineering....
 
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