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

[Nicholas Lipperd]

I've been here for a few months and never posted, but I'm just too grateful not to. I'm a senior at University of San Diego and I'm in NROTC. I retook the ASTB yesterday after getting 6/6/7 66 the first time. I needed to bring my scores up because my GPA makes me a target for subs, so I have spent the last three months combing through every post, study guide, and flash card set on here. Well thanks to everyone here, it paid off. My scores on the test yesterday: 9/8/9 70! Thanks again.

 

[Diana]

I've been here for a few months and never posted, but I'm just too grateful not to. I'm a senior at University of San Diego and I'm in NROTC. I retook the ASTB yesterday after getting 6/6/7 66 the first time. I needed to bring my scores up because my GPA makes me a target for subs, so I have spent the last three months combing through every post, study guide, and flash card set on here. Well thanks to everyone here, it paid off. My scores on the test yesterday: 9/8/9 70! Thanks again.

Hello, I am taking the ASTB but only the OAR part I was wondering how di you prepare? I hve printed the astb gouge on this website and also studying from a gmat/math book. ANy tips, this is my second time taking it.

Thanks

 

[Diana]

Thanks for doing that, it's good to know roughly what sort of time frame I'm looking at. Sorry about the snowpocalypse, I'm not from a part of the country where I've ever had to deal with something like that.

I'll write back on here after I take the ASTB.

Do you have any tips on what books to use to study for the ASTB?

 

[Geordie]

Hello, I am taking the ASTB but only the OAR part I was wondering how di you prepare? I hve printed the astb gouge on this website and also studying from a gmat/math book. ANy tips, this is my second time taking it.

I spent a few days looking through this thread and appreciate the gouges everyone has posted. As to the most useful, downloadable content I would suggest reading youngaviator's post then downloading OAR STUDY INFORMATION.PDF. From there, follow the links, download everything and start doing the practice tests (one of the links is dead but the rest are good). Additionally use Khan Academy starting with the Algebra I portion to brush up on your math skills. At least that's what I will be doing for the next three weeks.

Good luck Diana and Congratulations again Nicholas Lipperd.

 

[Erin Salazar]

I have been lurking through the forums for a little while now but have yet to post. However, I took the ASTB a few days ago and thought I would try and post what I remember about it. I only had 2 weeks to study before my OSO had me take it and I scored a 5/6/6 54. I am not happy with my scores at all but my OSO told me that "If it qualifies then it qualifies" and told me not to try and re-take it. Anyways, here's a short breakdown of my experience.

Math Section
This section was not as hard as I imagined it would be but I obviously didn't do to hot either. Most of the questions I got were just algebra and geometry. There were some probability problems thrown in but no Logarithms or anything like that. The math isn't hard, just know how to set up the problems(most study guides will have examples that match almost exactly with the test questions). Not sure how I scored what I did, but I think if you study the study guides/practice tests on here than you will do fine.

Reading:
I thought this section would be one of the easier ones but I was somewhat wrong. The reading is dry and the answers are pretty tricky. Most the problems were easy to narrow the answers down to 2, but then those 2 would both seem correct and I would have a hard time choosing one. I don't remember it being overly difficult though.

Mechanical:
I knew this section was going to be a little harder for me, but it wasn't terrible. There were a lot of pulley and lever questions. I only had 1 or 2 circuit questions. I had a few velocity questions and a few about gears. This section ended up being a lot more simple than I thought it would be.

UAV:
I had looked at a few practice problems on the forum and understood how to do the problems before I went in. Before the section starts you get 8 practice problems. I have never been a great test taker and I was starting to get stressed out when I missed a couple at the beginning. It's really not hard and should be easy points, just review it a lot before the test so you don't get anxious like I did. I missed a lot more than I should have, but I also should have practiced more before I took it.

Avionics/Nautical:
I didn't get to do a ton of studying for this section but I still think I did okay on it. There were a few questions about how to tell what direction a plane is going based on the lights you see. There were questions about the numbers and lights on a runway and what they mean. Most the questions though were about parts of an airplane and what controls different movements. This was definitely one of the easiest sections.

Performance Based Measures Battery:
This part of the test was definitely the hardest for me. I had heard horror stories on here and for the most part they were true. I didn't think the number sequence part of it was super difficult but tracking the two planes was almost impossible. The controls are not very sensitive at all and therefor it's extremely difficult to track, and most the time I ended up chasing, over correcting, chasing, and over correcting again. It's really easy to get stressed out on it so my advice is just to relax the best you can go with it. I don't think anyone could be "good" at this or even "pass" so you're going to feel like you're doing a lot worse than you're really doing.

All in all, the test was long and some sections were pretty tough, but it's definitely doable if you put some effort into studying. I only had 2 weeks and didn't get to study as much as I would of liked and still passed. Wouldn't of been able to do it without all the info on this website though so thank you to everyone who contributed. Study the guides and you will do fine, good luck to anyone taking it.

 

[izlt]

Is there any advices for acing Reading part? I am not really a native American nor have good English oral and verbal skills. I am currently working on memorizing words (Back to high schooler..)
I will be taking ASTB this December. I will be praising you if I get more than 4 on the Academic part.

 

[Kavon]

Do you have any tips on what books to use to study for the ASTB?

Sorry for my late response, I didn't get an e-mail.
I purchased Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests, 2nd edition.
I also looked over this http://www.futureofficer.com/downloads/ASTB_Personal_Study_Guide.pdf
And this http://manlypat.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/astb_study_guide.pdf
As well as the .pdf I uploaded
I've had about two and a half weeks to look over it all and look at the practice tests in Barron's book. I also made flashcards with the aviation/nautical terms from the second and third resources I linked.

I'll soon know if it paid off. I take the test tomorrow afternoon.

Good luck to you!

 

[Kavon]

So I just got back from the test. The results were 63 7/7/6. I'm pretty satisfied with that. Like I said before, I used only the above resources to study over the course of about two weeks. There were still a couple things, especially in the aviation/nautical info section that I didn't run into while studying. I would make sure to be aware of different types of airspaces, as well as matrix multiplication for the math section. I never ever learned those, so I missed that one. The PBM is definitely the most difficult section; the throttle was very unresponsive and the stick was very stiff and heavy, at least compared to what I remember when I used to play around on flight sim. If anybody has any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks to everybody on airwarriors who pointed me in the right direction when it came to studying for this.

If anybody wants to offer an opinion, like if I should retest, please do.

 

[AT2toNFO]

So I just got back from the test. The results were 63 7/7/6. I'm pretty satisfied with that. Like I said before, I used only the above resources to study over the course of about two weeks. There were still a couple things, especially in the aviation/nautical info section that I didn't run into while studying. I would make sure to be aware of different types of airspaces, as well as matrix multiplication for the math section. I never ever learned those, so I missed that one. The PBM is definitely the most difficult section; the throttle was very unresponsive and the stick was very stiff and heavy, at least compared to what I remember when I used to play around on flight sim. If anybody has any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks to everybody on airwarriors who pointed me in the right direction when it came to studying for this.

If anybody wants to offer an opinion, like if I should retest, please do.

You'll be fine, you did great. Congrats!

 

[Diana]

Good afternoon, I am posting this hoping someone could provide me with some general info. I am a mother of three, married to a marine who will be getting out in April 2015. I hold a bachelors degree in mathematical sciences with a gpa 2.6 from NJIT. I know my gpa is not the best. I will be taking the oar exam in two weeks and I have been preparing by basically freshening up my math with a gmat book and will be using the gouges floating around here and looking into the library timed tests. I am currently doing some volunteer work and also on my first year of my master degree in finance. I am planning on applying to navy ocs after I get a good score but I am not sure if anyone knows anything about the dependency rule or if I would even be able to apply. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Diana

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Good afternoon, I am posting this hoping someone could provide me with some general info. I am a mother of three, married to a marine who will be getting out in April 2015. I hold a bachelors degree in mathematical sciences with a gpa 2.6 from NJIT. I know my gpa is not the best. I will be taking the oar exam in two weeks and I have been preparing by basically freshening up my math with a gmat book and will be using the gouges floating around here and looking into the library timed tests. I am currently doing some volunteer work and also on my first year of my master degree in finance. I am planning on applying to navy ocs after I get a good score but I am not sure if anyone knows anything about the dependency rule or if I would even be able to apply. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Diana

I have put in dual mil, that wasn't much of an issue. The biggest issue you have is your GPA, there are people that get picked up with that low of a GPA but it is usually SNA and SNFO and those people have good ASTB scores, I am guessing you are over the age for those and the next largest designator would be SWO but your GPA is below the minimum for that, realistically with your GPA there is little you could do to make yourself competitive for the designators that have a higher age limit.

 

[Diana]

I have put in dual mil, that wasn't much of an issue. The biggest issue you have is your GPA, there are people that get picked up with that low of a GPA but it is usually SNA and SNFO and those people have good ASTB scores, I am guessing you are over the age for those and the next largest designator would be SWO but your GPA is below the minimum for that, realistically with your GPA there is little you could do to make yourself competitive for the designators that have a higher age limit.

I just turned 28. So in your opinion is not worth trying or no jobs there? Should I even bother taking the test then? I spoke to the recruiter and told him all this but he still scheduled me

 

[Diana]

I have put in dual mil, that wasn't much of an issue. The biggest issue you have is your GPA, there are people that get picked up with that low of a GPA but it is usually SNA and SNFO and those people have good ASTB scores, I am guessing you are over the age for those and the next largest designator would be SWO but your GPA is below the minimum for that, realistically with your GPA there is little you could do to make yourself competitive for the designators that have a higher age limit.

Also my recruiter mentioned Intel, I was not asking for that one but that is the first one he came up with.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

I just turned 28. So in your opinion is not worth trying or no jobs there? Should I even bother taking the test then? I spoke to the recruiter and told him all this but he still scheduled me

you meet the minimum GPA so the recruiter cannot tell you "no", but being realistic you have little chance, you would also have to be in OCS by your 28 year 9 month point to meet age limits for several programs.

 

[Diana]

So don't bother then?