Hello everyone,
I just took my ASTB a few days ago for the first time, and I’m excited to say I got qualifying scores for SNA. My score was 58/7/7/7. Although they might not be highly competitive scores, they’re high enough and I’ll take it! I thought that I should write a bit of information for anyone looking for advice for taking the exam in the future.
I do have a pretty solid background in aviation, I am an instrument-rated commercial pilot. However, math is not my strong suit and I had very little prior knowledge of nautical information. I believe that if I can pass this, you can too.
First off, this forum was critical to my success and I would highly recommend doing a deep dive on this thread. There is a lot of free information on here and I could not have passed without it. I only had about 2 weeks of studying before I took the exam, but I spent every extra second I could studying for it.
The source I spent the most time on was the $20 app created by TwoScoops (well worth the money) as well as I memorized the free 400ish flashcards on the Cram website. You can find more information on these resources in this thread. I bought a $25 ASTB study guide off of Amazon, but it was very surface-level information and I don’t think it was worth it. For the Performance-based part of the exam, the app was VERY helpful with the UAV portion. I also spent quite a few hours on the free jantzenx.github.io/ASTB/ simulator to get a solid idea on how it was going to look and feel.
MATH
This was by far the hardest part for me. Like I said before, math is not my strong suit. Know your basics such as PEMDAS, rules of exponents, simplifying equations, matrix addition, and multiplication rules. I didn’t have many questions on geometry but definitely know the interior and exterior angles of polygons depending on their number of sides. how to find the area of 3D objects like spheres and cubes. Know trigonometry (SOH, CAH, TOA). I had quite a few questions on logarithms and simplifying them. Know percentages and probability. I had a lot of questions about the probability of rolling dice and drawing playing cards. A LOT of my questions were scenario-based, so it was critical that you set up a proper equation to solve the question. There's a whole bunch of free practice tests online with similar problems.
READING
Probably the easiest part of the exam. You just need to use the process of elimination and find the most logical answer. I spent very little time studying for this part because I thought I needed to spend my limited time focusing on the math portion. If you ever took a reading placement test in high school or college, this is exactly like that.
MECHANICAL
The TwoScoops app was super helpful for this, I can not reiterate how helpful this app was. Know basic physics principles like Pascal’s Principle and Bernoulli’s Principle. This section mainly covered Newton’s three laws of motion, simple machines, mechanical advantage. Know how altitude and density affect volume. How to find current, resistance, and voltage in parallel circuits and series circuits.
*You will have a 15-minute break after these 3 subjects, use it!*
ANIT
I mostly focused on the Naval side of this part because of my background in aviation. For the aviation part, I had a lot of questions on the parts of an aircraft such as control surfaces, types of aircraft engines, and light gun signals. I also had a few questions on the angle of attack of an airfoil (the wing). Aside from the app, I did not seek out other information for this because of my background. The FAA has lots of free textbooks online, I would recommend the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK) and the Airplane Flying Handbook (AFH).
For the Naval side of things, the app and the 400 Cram Flashcards were plenty for this section. There were a couple of questions that were not in the app or flashcards, but honestly, the subject is so broad, you can’t memorize it all. Most of my questions were aviation-related, and not Naval-related, but it changes for everyone.
UAV
I got almost all of these right on the exam, and the TwoScoops app prepared me very well for this. Just practice, practice, practice and you will do great. It's all about time and accuracy on these, so repetition is the only way to get a good score for the exam.
Terrain Association
Again, the app prepares you very well for this portion. I’m sure others have done it, but I found a trick with my pencil that got me almost %100 accuracy every time. I would find a landmark on the zoomed-in map that was straight up and down with my pencil, then rotate my pencil in the direction of the north-up map that matched the same landmarks. The direction that your pencil is pointing would be your new heading and answer. I could quickly find the new heading of the map once I practiced this for about an hour.
Stick and Throttle
The previously mentioned jantzenx flight simulator almost perfectly replicates this part of the test and it's free! I did not buy any sort of flight sim equipment for this, just used my mouse and keyboard. It is tough initially, but with practice, you will get the hang of it! I put my settings on easy at first just to get the feel of it and build my confidence, and then gradually changed the settings to hard. If you can get scores around 100 on hard, you’re doing pretty well.
Dichotic Listening
This will be part of the Stick and Throttle portion of the exam, but it's helpful to break them down into two parts. You can practice this on the jantzenx flight simulator, just go to the settings and turn it on (you need headphones for this part). I will say that the actual part of the exam is a little different from the simulator, but you will still get a great idea of how it works and feels. In the jantzenx simulator, you are using both ears but during the exam, it will prompt a single ‘Target ear”. It is helpful to rotate your head in that direction so you don’t get confused, it may seem silly but trust me on this.
Emergency Procedures
This will be the last part of the Joystick and Throttle portion. There will be 3 emergencies: Engine fire, Engine power loss, and Propeller malfunction. The only thing I can say about this is to use your scratch paper to write down the emergency procedure steps before the test begins. Do not rely on your memory.
The last two parts of the exam are questionnaires about yourself as an individual which you can’t study for, so don’t worry about it!
It’s very important to stay calm and work through the problems throughout this exam. I hope you found this information helpful and let me know if you have any questions!
