You are correct, but due to competition and only being able to take the test 3 times, I highly recommended that they had some math and physics under their belts before taking the test.
-ea6bflyr
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Getting a flight contract from NROTC.
- Thread starter Biles
- Start date
You are correct, but due to competition and only being able to take the test 3 times, I highly recommended that they had some math and physics under their belts before taking the test.
-ea6bflyr
BlackBearHockey
go blue...
You are correct, but due to competition and only being able to take the test 3 times, I highly recommended that they had some math and physics under their belts before taking the test.
-ea6bflyr
I'll second that. I took it the first semester of my 3/C year and had some trouble with the physics. Prior to taking the ASTB, the last time I saw a physics problem was 1999. It wasn't absurdly difficult, but I didn't remember a thing about it. I would recommend taking it once early (3/C) to get a handle of what the test is like, but for your best scores I'll echo what EA6B said.
IrishEagle85
New Member
You are correct, but due to competition and only being able to take the test 3 times, I highly recommended that they had some math and physics under their belts before taking the test.
-ea6bflyr
Fair enough. Although I still recommend he gets a prep book before he takes it his sophomore/junior year. My scores were a bit on the lower side at 6,6,7,56. The last math course I had taken was Calculus II two years before and Physics AP in high school 3 years before. I also took the ATSB pretty much cold turkey; I grabbed the prep book from my unit and glanced over the spacial orientation section during the classes I had right before I took the test.
Agreed. You should have "fresh" math & physics skills or use the study guide to re-fresh. I'd recommend both. If you are going to do it, do it right.
-ea6bflyr
Agreed. You should have "fresh" math & physics skills or use the study guide to re-fresh. I'd recommend both. If you are going to do it, do it right.
-ea6bflyr
Seeing as how the OP said he was going to major in CompE, I don't think the math and physics should be too much of a problem. But getting a prep book or session (our aviator advisor gave us a "review" session) is defintely good headwork.
IrishEagle85
New Member
The rest of you can comment on this one way or the other, but it always seemed at my unit the spacial orientation section was the one that tripped people up.
Thanks for the tips, everyone! I definitely don't think physics and calculus should have much effect on me (required to take three of each at Tech), but some of the spacial orientation questions are crazy. I looked at some examples online, and I got 3/4, but I think a couple of them were lucky guesses. I've got to study up on aerial terminology also. I'll be sure to look for a review booklet.
IrishEagle85
New Member
The key to acing spacial orientation is to memorize how the cockpit is going to look with each action. If you're climbing, there's generally going to be more sky than ground. If you're descending, there's generally going to be more ground than sky. For turning, look at the direction of the slant between the ground and sky and take the opposite of it. So if the slant is running from bottom left to top right, odds are you're banking right. If the slant is running from bottom right to top left, odds are you're banking left. Then you just put all those together for combined banks and dives. You also have to decide if you're heading out to sea, going in land, or following the coast line, but that should be pretty easy to figure out
All things have their time...the ASTB is nothing for you to sweat now. By the time we took it in college, none of us were sweating it (we were probably too worried about some other test we had later that day). A big focus of our review sessions were on the spatial orientation. A few days with a prep book before the test should make the spacial stuff easy. Worry about ejoying the last bit of HS and then worry about not keeping your grades up and your uniforms ironed when you get to MaTech.
I don't see a real reason to memorize the spacial stuff. If you've spent any amount of time with flight sims, the stuff should be pretty intuitive.
IrishEagle85
New Member
Some of us didn't have money for flight sims all the time ;-) But really, all of the spacial stuff is intuitive when taken in context with the pull of acceleration. Your body knows exactly what's going on ;-)
I didn't mean any sort of specialized flight sim...any sort of Xbox/PS3/PC game should be enough.
And your body doesn't always know what's going on. That's what these are for:
IrishEagle85
New Member
You wouldn't be busted because the Lt that gives the test locks you in a room with you, a pencil, a computer, and a stack of paper.
You would be busted though because you don't have time to sit there playing paper airplane all day. The whole test is pretty much rapid fire, and that's truly what gets people. You gotta beef up that hamster, and keep his wheel greased.
The MOI is good people, too. He's a straight shooter and likes to talk alot. He'll probably be the XO before you get here though. If you need any gouge about the unit that the feel good literature isn't telling you, just let me know. About the school, I couldn't care less, but the unit, I can help you with.
EDIT: If you truly, truly want to make an impression on people when you come here there are only a few things you need to do:
1) Be able to rip out an awesome PFT.
2) Learn some Marine Corps knowledge. Specifically rank structure and General Orders. I recommend getting your hands on that welcome aboard book that recruiters give to guys going to boot camp and learning it cover to cover.
3) Learn some drill. Facing movements and proper position of attention.
If you can do those on day 1 of Inform, you will have made an impression on everyone, and that opens doors, specifically the ones you want to have open.
You would be busted though because you don't have time to sit there playing paper airplane all day. The whole test is pretty much rapid fire, and that's truly what gets people. You gotta beef up that hamster, and keep his wheel greased.
The MOI is good people, too. He's a straight shooter and likes to talk alot. He'll probably be the XO before you get here though. If you need any gouge about the unit that the feel good literature isn't telling you, just let me know. About the school, I couldn't care less, but the unit, I can help you with.
EDIT: If you truly, truly want to make an impression on people when you come here there are only a few things you need to do:
1) Be able to rip out an awesome PFT.
2) Learn some Marine Corps knowledge. Specifically rank structure and General Orders. I recommend getting your hands on that welcome aboard book that recruiters give to guys going to boot camp and learning it cover to cover.
3) Learn some drill. Facing movements and proper position of attention.
If you can do those on day 1 of Inform, you will have made an impression on everyone, and that opens doors, specifically the ones you want to have open.
IrishEagle85
New Member
Like Biles said, you don't have the time for that kind of thing, and it's really not going to give you the cockpit view that you're looking at. Get a test prep book and practice to get a better feel for it, or read what I wrote above about how to tell based on the slant of the horizon.