Just took the ASTB-E and thought I would post on here as it helped me a ton.
Score: 7/8/6 56
Background Info:
I am a sophomore at a service academy majoring in Aerospace Engineering. I have a 3.4 (roughly) GPA and I am a private pilot with about 178 hours. I will be selecting SNA.
Studying and Resources:
I didn't get to study as much as I would have liked to simply due to the nature of my school. However, I was still able to get solid studying time in mostly for the math and mechanical comprehension sections. I probably studied a net of 2 hours a day for about two weeks. I found that the study material made by people on this forum was more helpful than some of the books. I ranked my study materials below:
1. Study Material found on this forum
2. Barrons Military Flight Aptitude Tests: This book is great for walking you through a lot of the concepts and also has many good practice tests. However, I found a lot of the math questions were harder than in the book. It is worth the buy.
3. Master the Military Flight Aptitude Test: Not the best book by any means, but it did have some good questions if that what you are looking for.
My school also put on various ASTB review sessions which outlined the structure of the test and some example problems. This forum is a better equivalent to this. I think I probably read through 100-150 pages.
The Exam:
I had the exam in the afternoon after a heavy load of engineering classes. I tried to get as much rest as possible, taking about two naps throughout the day. I drank a lot of water and ate a sizable amount for breakfast and lunch which I think helped.
MST: I ran out of time on this section and probably did the worst on it. There were plenty of algebra questions, fractions, lots of averages, and one log and matrix problem. The averages were the toughest by far. Much harder than anything in the test preparation material which made me feel uncomfortable and not confident at all. This probably hurt my score the most.
"Josh scores a 75, 60, and 94, on the first 3 exams. If his 4th exam is 10/9 of the average of the first three, what does he have to score on the next two in order to average a 85 on exams."
"A war starts in the year x^2 and ends in the year (x+1)^2. If the total length of the war is 29 years, what year did the war start.
RCT: I felt like I did better than I thought on this exam, but I am still not sure. I read the passages multiple times and then went to the answers. Obvious incorrect statements I threw out before going back to read the passage to decide on the answer that was closest.
MCT: The questions here were very similar to the study material on this website as well as Barrons study book. You can easily study pretty much everything you need on this section: everything is out there. I made my money here. I had 3 ideal gas law problems, pulleys, force, no gears, and no circuits. Overall pretty easy.
ANIT: Anything I say here is probably not helpful as I have flight experience and I am an Aero major. I started out with an AoA question, to a question about some aerodynamic properties of ailerons and elevators, to questions about the AIM and things only private pilots would know. So I knew I was doing well here. Only questions I had regarding nautical stuff was "What is the lowest deck on a ship called / What is the highest deck called." This section probably lasted 5 minutes max.
NATFI: I just answered these honestly. I heard that trying to fabricate your answers can dig you a hole. If I couldn't decide between two questions I generally picked what made me seem more of an extrovert or a leader. I think they may just be looking for consistency here.
PBM: During the practice I just decided to use the compass trick as I was not consistent without it. I missed one question averaging around 2-3 seconds each.
I was able to practice this a little bit before taking it by using a simulator made in matlab that is on this forum. However, I did have to modify the simulator to correct the y axis inversion. Overall, this probably did not help much at all. Maybe it just got me used to the controls. Putting everything together with the listening was hard, but just try your best. I would recommend not pausing to take a breath nor anything alike. Just keep going, keep trying and you should come out of it well.
Summary: This forum was the biggest help in figuring out what to expect. Go in confident about your studying and you should do well. I am content with my scores and will keep them. However, if I had to take it again, I would say that my first experience taking it would be the most help in doing better the second time around.