exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
You should be good but you really need to see what other NROTC students have done as that is who you will be compared against, not those going for SNA via OCS
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1,001 questions about the ASTB (post your scores & ask your questions here!)
- Thread starter edato
- Start date
Aren’t you rank by GPA to get selected for designators? I thought number one guy get first pick and then it works itself down. Sta-21/NROTC/academy all together?
exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
NROTC is one group, USNA is another group
My understanding (it could have changed) is they put their choices in order and then selections are made.
BravoDeatl
New Member
Just took the ASTB for the second time applying for pilot in the marines, and my score when to 58 5/4/5 to 59 5/5/5. I was pretty bummed about this as I had done a lot of studying between the 2 test. While I was taking the test I thought I was doing much better but turns out I wasn't. I felt better on the math, reading, and mechanical part then before, so maybe I'm lacking in the other sections of the test. Does anyone have any Ideas on how or what I should study/do differently to prepare for the next test?
Toadbob
Member
First, don't let this defeat you. I had to retake mine and went from 45 4/5/4 to 49 5/5/6 and got accepted to NFO. I don't believe that it was specifically my scores that got me in, but my entire overall packet. Take it again if you feel you can do better. DO NOT OVERSTUDY to the point where you are stressing out - push yourself yes but do not stress over it and take your time - you have 90 days to study it is plenty of time. Try to do better on the UAV part with the emergency procedures because my recruiter said that is what they are looking for. During that part of the test next time you take it, in between sessions where they are adding on procedures, stand up for a second, stretch your arms, jump do whatever to make your blood flow. you will do better. I know that is what made me do better my second go around.
Drink coffee when you study and smoke a cigarette if you have to.
edit* practice your math in a way that you know HOW to solve a problem. the method. It will save you time and effort as opposed to trying to do a voluminous amount of mathematics that can overwhelm you. My advice on studying is to study to know the concept and method of solving. How do i find that missing variable??? it's 'this' kind of problem so i know to use 'that' formula..
BravoDeatl
New Member
Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely try and study more math that way, never thought of it like that
Just want to follow up on this as well. For the OAR portion- Math, Mechanical Comp, and Reading I would be using Kyles ASTB Gouge. This is a Google Drive link that will be listed numerous times throughout this thread (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AvPi5oH_h_13TGajDvflDWkftwXO8LS6?usp=sharing). This helped a TON for me, especially the mechanical. I would suggest finding good books to help as well, there are some that outlines the OAR and the subjects you should study. This will help give you an indication of what to study. For math, I used Khan Academy, which was the best resource I found. Make sure you don't underestimate the reading portion.. Seriously. I thought I did horrible on the first portion of the test so I made sure to take my time and read through the paragraph. It sounds dumb but if you read it too quickly you will make assumptions. I did long study sessions throughout multiple days. I wanted to see what I struggled with and what I already knew to a competent level. I really continued to focus on my weaker portions as it got closer. You need to do a lot of memorizing and just practice practice practice.
As far as the pilot portions, I would use the ASTB UAV trick that you can find easily on Youtube. To pair with that, you can find flashcards that you can practice with. Try your best to be as quick and as accurate as possible. When all else fails, accuracy counts more. The other portions are pretty stressful so take time when you can, if you can practice ahead of time, take as much time as possible to practice. When doing the audio portion, I would even suggest writing 'Odd' and 'Even' and putting them on the corresponding sides if that helps you remember. In the last portion of the pilot exam, make sure to write your procedures down to perform them quickly.
When you take the exam, focus on one portion at a time. Know that even if you think you did badly in one portion you need to make it up and do that much better in the later ones. That is important, don't give up if you think you messed things up.
Feel free to DM me if you have further questions. Also, USE the old posts in this exact thread. I swear I sat down and read everyone's experiences almost every day. A lot of people write what tripped them up and tips, that was one of the best parts of this thread.
For reference:
My starting scores: 45 3,4,3
Ending scores: 55 7,9,8
IMPORTANT: USE BOOKS. Read the older posts in this thread. Trust yourself, push hard. Even when you think you can't do better, you can (just look at my starting scores).
Toadbob
Member
use OrganicChemistryTutor on youtube and not Khan academy mathematics - that guy just talks and talks and talks and makes jokes about shit all throughout his "lessons" and it just confuses and misguides people.
FloridaDad
Well-Known Member
OrganicChemistryTutor is amazing. Best math teacher I’ve ever encountered. Can’t speak highly enough of his content!
I also highly recommend Gomez’s Guide on the forum (search for it). It’s mostly just Kyle’s guide but it has more practice tests and worksheets in it that are divided up by topic. Super great resource for math
umijs
Member
Searched around for an answer but couldn’t find anything concrete. Anyways, how big of an impact does mechanical comprehension have on your scores, specifically the AQR? That’s the one I’m struggling with the most but fortunately I’ve read that math seems to have the biggest impact.
Hey everyone! After two months of hardcore studying, I finally completed my ASTB-E this afternoon!
This was my first attempt and I believe last, I got a 58 8/8/8
For a little background, I am an Astrophysics major, Commercial Pilot, play video games, and have simulator experience, will be applying for SNA.
I can say I am the first and probably last person to have taken their ASTB during a rave...
Okay, for starters I walked into the testing room, and the florescent tube lightbulbs in the ceiling we're flashing NON STOP, it was like a rave, and an epileptic persons worst nightmare. The proctor even cracked a joke about it LOL.
MATH COMPREHENSION:
The math portion I felt was "easy" for how much effort I put in, not easy in terms of question progression, they noticeable got more and more challenging as it went. I got questions on probability, exponents, radicals, simplifying polynomials, arc length, area of a circle, calculating how many sides a shape has by a given interior angle, logs, labor problems (if it takes joe 10 mins to do a task and jane 15, how long will it take if they work together), and length of sides of a box after being given volume of a box.
Going into the exam, I made sure to master all of the following, seriously use Organic Chem Tutor on YouTube for all the subsections below that he has made a video for, the guy explains it clearly, and doesn't put me to sleep like Khan Academy haha.
-Addition/Subtraction/Multiplication/Long Division
-Matrix: addition/subtraction/multiplication
-D=RT (distance = rate x time)
-Probability
-Logarithms
-"Labor Problems"
-Weighted averages and percentages
-Area of circle/triangle/square
-Volume of cubes/cylinders/cones
-FOIL
-Perfect numbers
-Arc Length
-Binary
-Radicals/Exponents
Super bummed I didn't get any matrix, D=RT, or binary problems, but at least you get to learn some pretty neat stuff in the process.
READING COMPREHENSION:
So like I said earlier, I took the ASTB in a rave, this made it damn near impossible to read the long, dry, and boring paragraphs. I honestly had to re-read them an embarrassing amount of times because I just couldn't concentrate with the constant flashing of the lights, so I think my OAR was this "low" because I didn't do as well on the reading portion. Not much advice on this one, but was also my least studied area when it came to this test.
MECHANICAL COMPREHENSION:
For this section, I found it really straight forward, I think there was one problem that required some arithmetic, other than that it was all conceptual questions, I would make sure you know these below:
-Mechanical Advantage with pulleys/inclined planes/levers
-Tension/Springs
-Torque
-Balancing things on a fulcrum
-Gears
-Circuits in parallel vs series (Ohms Law)
-Pendulums
-Buoyancy
-Density
-Specific Gravity
-Bernoulli's Principle
-Screws mechanical advantage
I didn't get any gears surprisingly, didn't have to calculate resistant or circuits at all, I was asked conceptual questions about AC circuits thought. For sure had a venturi questions asking about Bernoulli's principle.
NAFTI:
Super boring, 99 questions, 20 or so minutes of my life that I will never get back
As you hear from everyone, you have to pick between two bad choices, I was surprised to see positive choices on there though. Awesome that you don't have to study for it, just use your noggin.
ANIT:
So having my commercial pilots license, I knew 95% of the stuff off the bat, all I had to learn was boat terminology via the sweet cram flash cards which I will have the link of a link to. I surprisingly didn't get asked questions that had navy relevance, such as dates, terms, stuff of that sort, it was strictly parts of a plane, their functions, parts of a boat, and that was it.
UAV:
This portion I used the compass rose paper trick every day and knocked out the flashcards and was able to ace it at home.
When I did the practice ones prior to starting the UAV section, my brain shut off and I couldn't remember how to do the trick, prefect timing right?
I had to re learn it on the spot, then pressed start and got all 48 correct with about a 1.3-2.5 second window.
This portion is probably the best and most available to prepare for so make sure you know it well.
DICHOTIC LISTENING:
I TOTALLY BOTCHED THE FIRST ONE!!!
For some silly reason, when the test started, I disregarded "target ear" and just clicked the clutch button on the throttle when I heard an odd number, and pulled the trigger on the joystick when I heard an even. I realized 25 seconds into doing this that I was completely F'ing it up, corrected for the rest - and took my L.
I was so bummed for 0.2 seconds and then snapped back into "get over it, finish your test" mode.
A big key in this is keeping your head up and not letting yourself feel like total garbage after one mistake.
I think the reason I got 8/8/8 and not any 9's, was due to this big mess up on the first portion of the listening.
DICHOTIC LISTENING WITH STICK AND THROTTLE:
This was actually kind of fun after a while, I figured out my previous mistakes and made sure not to replicate them, all I can say is focus on joystick tracking, click the appropriate buttons, and manage your vertical tracking with your peripheral vision.
EMERGENCY WITH STICK AND THROTTLE:
This portion was the easiest part of the test. It gave you the 3 emergencies and you had to do the three simple tasks to put it out and it was over. I think it lasted less than 15 seconds.
I did notice that my controls were opposite in direction for the fuel and power wheel-buttons, so watch out for that.
If the previous gentleman is reading this, I reset my stuff to neutral every time and didn't have the same issue you had.
-------------------------------------------------------
To address some of the quirks I read on the past forums, I never had to leave my mouse on clock to show timer, it displayed it no matter what, along with the formula tab for the math part.
I used the Barron and the Trivium books only for their tests, not for their material because I already knew the stuff that was in there, and its really basic compared to what is on the exam.
All in all, it is a manageable test and if I can do it, you can do it, seriously.
Hit me up with any questions, I am more than happy to answer and help!
Here is everything I studied, I am trying to be an updated 1 stop shop for the new people taking it:
POST #5,132 https://www.airwarriors.com/communi...our-questions-here.28348/page-343#post-953698
POST 6,322 https://www.airwarriors.com/communi...scores-ask-your-questions-here.28348/page-422
POST 6,267 https://www.airwarriors.com/communi...scores-ask-your-questions-here.28348/page-418
POST 4,885 https://www.airwarriors.com/communi...scores-ask-your-questions-here.28348/page-418
ASTB material - Google Drive
drive.google.com
Hermellack’s ASTB Study Guide - Google Drive
drive.google.com
Rather than worrying about how the scores are broken down, I would suggest looking at the post I quoted to help you out. There are videos on Youtube that break it down to the simplest degree to at least help you comprehend it and get a better score.
FloridaDad
Well-Known Member
I don't think there's any concrete numbers out there on how much it figures in, but yes the Math is the biggest part of the OAR section that affects your scores.
Toadbob
Member
Yes, many mornings with coffee and Mr. Julio Gonzales. I don't know why he does it all for free, but I am forever in his debt.
Toadbob
Member
Just assume they all factor in equally. You need to understand flight physics and mechanical advantage just as much as you need to be able to comprehensively read a paragraph... Don't try and find a blueprint to "work" this test. Your best bet is to build yourself a quality, integral, general knowledge about all the subjects. Amazon can ship you a ASTB study guide in like 3-5 days if you cannot create for yourself an organized study plan.
Triumph_MAC
Well-Known Member
What’s everyone’s thought on a retake. I’ve taken the ASTB-E one time 42 5,7,6, was a non select for the November 20 and May 21 aviation board. I’ve been studying and am going to starting up with a tutor for math next week. My package is complete but am thinking I’d be better off retaking and shooting for a better OAR and AQR.