Hey Everyone!
I just re-took my ASTB the other day. First attempt was a 53 7/7/7 and now I got a 60 8/8/8.
The first attempt was a terrible experience. My test crashed 5 times in the middle of sections and I constantly had to go get the admin to reset it. That didn’t inspire confidence and disrupted my focus a bunch.
Anyway, I’ve been a lurker here for awhile, going through this forum many times to figure out how to study for this thing. I’ll talk about my experience and what I used to study.
MST: I got a lot of algebra (obviously), probability, geometry. I maybe got a couple DRT problems. I didn’t get any logs or matrices. There were a few that I had to guess on after eliminating the answers that I could. Those included a a simplification that resulted in a x^4 + x^3 + x^2 and so on, but I don’t remember the problem as I just moved on after I spent too much time. This retake, I finished with around 3 minutes to spare. (1st attempt I ran out of time). The problems got pretty difficult and it felt like I wasn’t doing great. I practiced a lot for this section and knew how to solve pretty much every type of problem and if I wasn’t able to solve, I worked backwards from the answers and eliminated what I could.
RST: I didn’t really study this section too hard as I focused on math and mechanical. I did do several sections from the ASTB Prep app and the Barons book though. I just eliminated what I could and chose what I thought was the best answer. Not too much else to add here. Just dry Navy passages.
MCT: I studied this section pretty hard. I got questions about springs, a couple levers, a couple pulleys. The rest I can’t really remember, but it was all pretty typical. Nothing really stuck out I guess? I did run out of time in this section, but I probably had around 1 or 2 questions left. I should have probably moved on from 1 or 2 questions that twisted my brain up for a bit, but nothing I can do now.
ANIT: I studied various flash cards on quizlet, the 415 cram that’s linked everywhere on here, and everything from the test prep app. I got two of the same question, “Wing tip vortices only occur when a wing is producing _____.” Know the parts of a ship as there were a few about that. A landing gear question asking about what a tailwheel was lol. Where on a cambered wing is air flowing the fastest question. My aviation experience helped here and nothing was really difficult.
NAFTI: Felt like a good break. Just took my time and answered the questions honestly. First time I took the test it crashed on question 98 and I had to start the section over so that sucked. No problems on the re-take though.
PBM: I studied the UAV portion only through the app. (Set to 30 degree increments, max amount of examples, and turned off the animations). I did this over and over and over to prepare and I don’t think I missed one. I didn’t use the compass trick because I thought it took too long. What helped me was to look at the parking lot targeted, look at the map, and say where it would be from me (left, far, close, right, far left, far right, close left, close right). I did that until I didn’t have to say it and just knew and it worked well for me.
The stick and throttle aspect was a lot easier the second time around. I didn’t buy a sim or anything just because I didn’t get around to it but I don’t think it would hurt at all. I leaned my head into the targeted ear and that seems to help. I did my best to follow the targets. For the emergency procedures, I took my time to study and learn the directions of the knobs. I knew what direction would be 0 and what would be 100. I didn’t pay attention to the fake gauges at all, but as soon as the alert came up, I let go of the stick and turned the knobs with my right hand. I would say it took less than a second and I was back to flying. (That was a change I made from my first test and the procedures took longer).
Overall, I’m happy with the score I got and I studied hard as hell for it. I wasn’t this more than anything. I went through countless pages of this forum and collected all the drives. I searched for any 9/9/9 member I could and used their resources. I saw multiple people on Reddit (r/new tithe navy) who used the same 5 resources and got 8s and 9s. I studied a lot from member blackngold, post #s 3453, 3875, and 4462. I learned a lot from all the other members and I hope I can do the same!