For those who have taken the test rather recently (within the past month or two) did you find the mechanical comprehension portion to be primarily solving problems, or conceptual? My cliff book is kicking my butt with all of the actual calculation problems, yet I breezed through the gouge with hardly a problem. I'm trying to determine exactly how much work I should put into the mech portion, or if I can place that elsewhere.
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Mechanical Comprehension
- Thread starter DarkMesa8
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Don't sweat the ASTB. The ARCO book - the section based on the ASTB, NOT the AFQT or whatever else they call it - is good to go. You do not need to be a calculus major, engineer, or anything else to figure out the problems. I was Phys Ed; I blew the test away. You just need to get a feel for the type of questions you will encounter before you take the test.
PRACTICE the spatial orientation problems (the ones with the different views of the airplane). You will have a bunch of those on the test, and very little time to work them out. You need to "know" what the answer is as soon as you see it.
PRACTICE the spatial orientation problems (the ones with the different views of the airplane). You will have a bunch of those on the test, and very little time to work them out. You need to "know" what the answer is as soon as you see it.
Question, on the spatial apperception portion, are the planes just silhouettes or are their outlines of the features of the plane? The reason I ask is because my Cliff book only gives sillhouettes, and its near impossible to tell if a plane is banking left or right when flying level, etc. There was an SA section downloadable here as a gouge, and I got all of those right with ease because of the outlines of the planes.
How many questions, how much time? My Cliff book gave me like 30 questions in 10 minutes.
How many questions, how much time? My Cliff book gave me like 30 questions in 10 minutes.
The Mechanical section was more of a logic test to me. No computation. Just have an understanding of physical common sense and you should be fine. The only real use I got out of ARCO was studying the spatial. The gouge on this site does wonders for the rest of the test.
Good Luck!
Good Luck!
Just got back from the test, you all were right, Mechanical was all concepts and I can't recall a single calculation other than basic ratios or simple math problems in the mech portion.
The only section I kind of ran out of time on was the first one, but after that I adapted it had plenty of time left after each section. I guess I didn't really run out of time... I got to the end of the problems and just couldn't go back to get the few I had skipped.
Spatial Apperception was 25 questions in 10 minutes.
The gouge REALLY helped out on the nautical/aeronautical section.
I did the pencil/paper form 3.
Thanks for all the help!
The only section I kind of ran out of time on was the first one, but after that I adapted it had plenty of time left after each section. I guess I didn't really run out of time... I got to the end of the problems and just couldn't go back to get the few I had skipped.
Spatial Apperception was 25 questions in 10 minutes.
The gouge REALLY helped out on the nautical/aeronautical section.
I did the pencil/paper form 3.
Thanks for all the help!
What are you applying for... OAR is very good... other scores are average.
Geese
You guys are dangerous.
walraven said:
This reflects my experience last week. Not hard at all, but watch out for stupid mistakes. Basic physics knowledge of pressure, forces, pulleys, levers, and torque goes a long way. You'll see a lot of questions in this section that are similer or almost exactly the same to the gouge and ARCO books.
Geese
You guys are dangerous.
The ailerons are filled in, and the cockpit is outlined if I remember correctly. Very easy with these features, but I'm a CFI/CFII and it comes natural to me, so my expereince with it might not be relavent. Perhaps go buy a little model airplane if you are having trouble. We do this with students often. A plane can bank left, bank right, climb, descent, or flight straight and level (in the spacial test). Those are the only possabilities. My personal method is to identify what is going on with the picture out loud, "climbing left bank out to sea", and then match it up that way. By involving my auditory sense it helps reinforce what I am looking for. Also, take a pencil or something and place it right in the CENTER of the picture. If the horizen line is on the pencil, then it's level, if it's above the horizen then it's climbing, and if it's below it's decending. This may seem fairly simply, but when you start adding in different amounts of bank (15° vs 45°) you can get confused because it looks so "different". There was a problem where the plane was banked 45° instead of the regular ~20-30°.DarkMesa8 said:
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