Just took the ASTB (February 20, 2007)
Hello Everyone:
I just took the ASTB test earlier this week and I wanted to share my observations with all of you. First let me give you a brief overview of what I brought to the exam. I am a complete civilian with no military experience whatsoever. I am currently in finance but am desperately looking for something more meaningful and challenging.
On top of having no exposure to aviation or nautical stuff, I was also a history major in college. I haven't seen anything having to do with mechanics since I was in high school. So my experience is one of the "walk on" with nothing more than my wits and my resolve.
Here are my observations:
In order to prepare I purchased both the Arco and the Cliff Notes. I am just going to say right now that the Cliff Test Prep book was a complete waste of time and money. The math and verbal portion was relevent to the actual test but the mechanics portions were absolutely ridiculous. The Cliff book set me off on a wild goose chase to understand the kinetic energy of a spring, the trigonometric functions involved with torque, and the gravitational constant needed to establish weights. You have 30 seconds to answer the mechanics problems. Even trying to understand these technical problems will only divert you from other easier topics that will be on the test. The Arco book for the most part was helpful. The Math and Verbal portions are actually harder in the book than the actual test but the mechanics is a mixed bag.
Verbal:
The verbal portion of the test consisted entirely of reading Comprehension. There were NO questions involving fixing the faulty word in a quote or filling in the appropriate word in a sentence. The reading questions were mostly straightforward although they did get a bit vague in parts.
Math:
Pretty straightforward for the most part. If you do the Arco Math prep stuff and drill down into the stuff that gives you trouble you should be fine. FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT HAVE A HARD TIME WITH WORD PROBLEMS: I found a very good book at the library called "How to Solve Word Problems in Algebra." It is short, concise, and does a very good job of translating words into numerical relationships. I highly recommend it.
Mechanical:
This section is a bit of a crap shoot for the amateur. Without a whole lot of science background, you just have to pick and choose and try to stay competitive. I found that I spent too much time on pulleys, levers, mechanical advantage, and force and should have made more time for steam, heat, and buoyancy. I had no idea what saturated steam was. It is a mile long and an inch deep. Try to keep yourself spread thin across the material.
Spatial Apperception:
Exactly as it appears in the Arco Flight Aptitude book. Again, as a complete novice, I developed two rules of thumb for quickly interpreting the pictures. #1 Horizon. If the horizon is above halfway in the picture box, the plane is diving. At halfway, it is level. Below halfway, a climb. #2 Direction. The direction of the turn at first seems counterintuitive. I mentally drew an arrow coming off the upward slant of the horizon to remind me of the direction.
Aviation/Nautical/Aviation Supplement
This is another area that is difficult to fill in with absolutely no other experience. I had to use the questions as my sole guide into this new world, so if it didn't show up in my Arco tests or the Marine gouge, I had no idea. I did check out an aviation encyclopedia and for everything I didn't know, I looked it up for a more comprehensive answer than the one sentence definition in the back of the exam.Lots of questions that I don't remember. I just know that there were 17 Apollo missions and not 18! The aviation supplement was a mixture of all the previous sections.
Finally, I found that I did have enough time on all the sections and even had some time left over to scrutinize my responses at the end. I took the test in a storage closet of the Recruiters which wasn't the most comfortable spot but that's how it goes.
My score: 7-6-7 61. I hope that doesn't totally discredit my advice. I was a little disappointed but my recruiter said it was highly competitive for Intel and that is all that matters.
Good Luck everybody and I hope to see you at OCS.
Hello Everyone:
I just took the ASTB test earlier this week and I wanted to share my observations with all of you. First let me give you a brief overview of what I brought to the exam. I am a complete civilian with no military experience whatsoever. I am currently in finance but am desperately looking for something more meaningful and challenging.
On top of having no exposure to aviation or nautical stuff, I was also a history major in college. I haven't seen anything having to do with mechanics since I was in high school. So my experience is one of the "walk on" with nothing more than my wits and my resolve.
Here are my observations:
In order to prepare I purchased both the Arco and the Cliff Notes. I am just going to say right now that the Cliff Test Prep book was a complete waste of time and money. The math and verbal portion was relevent to the actual test but the mechanics portions were absolutely ridiculous. The Cliff book set me off on a wild goose chase to understand the kinetic energy of a spring, the trigonometric functions involved with torque, and the gravitational constant needed to establish weights. You have 30 seconds to answer the mechanics problems. Even trying to understand these technical problems will only divert you from other easier topics that will be on the test. The Arco book for the most part was helpful. The Math and Verbal portions are actually harder in the book than the actual test but the mechanics is a mixed bag.
Verbal:
The verbal portion of the test consisted entirely of reading Comprehension. There were NO questions involving fixing the faulty word in a quote or filling in the appropriate word in a sentence. The reading questions were mostly straightforward although they did get a bit vague in parts.
Math:
Pretty straightforward for the most part. If you do the Arco Math prep stuff and drill down into the stuff that gives you trouble you should be fine. FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT HAVE A HARD TIME WITH WORD PROBLEMS: I found a very good book at the library called "How to Solve Word Problems in Algebra." It is short, concise, and does a very good job of translating words into numerical relationships. I highly recommend it.
Mechanical:
This section is a bit of a crap shoot for the amateur. Without a whole lot of science background, you just have to pick and choose and try to stay competitive. I found that I spent too much time on pulleys, levers, mechanical advantage, and force and should have made more time for steam, heat, and buoyancy. I had no idea what saturated steam was. It is a mile long and an inch deep. Try to keep yourself spread thin across the material.
Spatial Apperception:
Exactly as it appears in the Arco Flight Aptitude book. Again, as a complete novice, I developed two rules of thumb for quickly interpreting the pictures. #1 Horizon. If the horizon is above halfway in the picture box, the plane is diving. At halfway, it is level. Below halfway, a climb. #2 Direction. The direction of the turn at first seems counterintuitive. I mentally drew an arrow coming off the upward slant of the horizon to remind me of the direction.
Aviation/Nautical/Aviation Supplement
This is another area that is difficult to fill in with absolutely no other experience. I had to use the questions as my sole guide into this new world, so if it didn't show up in my Arco tests or the Marine gouge, I had no idea. I did check out an aviation encyclopedia and for everything I didn't know, I looked it up for a more comprehensive answer than the one sentence definition in the back of the exam.Lots of questions that I don't remember. I just know that there were 17 Apollo missions and not 18! The aviation supplement was a mixture of all the previous sections.
Finally, I found that I did have enough time on all the sections and even had some time left over to scrutinize my responses at the end. I took the test in a storage closet of the Recruiters which wasn't the most comfortable spot but that's how it goes.
My score: 7-6-7 61. I hope that doesn't totally discredit my advice. I was a little disappointed but my recruiter said it was highly competitive for Intel and that is all that matters.
Good Luck everybody and I hope to see you at OCS.
An understanding of math is not necessarily directly proportional to the nerdiocity of the understander. However, it does have a direct relationship to the ability to kick A$$ on the ASTB.