Hey all,
I just wanted to say thanks for everyone's help. I found this site a month ago after I took the ASTB for the first time, figuring that the ARCO book would be all I needed, and scored a 5/5/6 50 and I wanted to improve. I just finished the test this morning and scored a 7/7/9 60 which is awesome to me (I'm looking NFO so I'm pretty happy about that 9). The gouges on this site and studying a few hours a week was all that I needed. I'm not sure how a lot of people on this site seem to have gotten perfect scores without studying, but if you're like me and not that gifted, it doesn't take much studying to do well if you study the right material.
This was my mistake the first time I took the test. I knew the ARCO material in and out, but that book is just one of a few sources that you should look at (sorry if this is redundant from other posts, but it can't hurt):
Math: Study/Do practice problems from the ARCO book for both the Navy & Air Force practice exams (they are almost identical, and this stuff is all about practice)...math is my strong point but if it's not yours, make sure that you KNOW algebra, as I would say this is 75% of the test.
Verbal: Despite what the ARCO book says, this test is ALL reading comprehension. Very hard to study for since it is mostly core concepts you learned when you were younger. Best advice that I have is to try and throw out any previous knowledge you have and just answer the questions based on the passages given (sounds dumb until you've tried a few of these things).
Mechanical Comprehension: By far my weakest section, as I was horrible at physics in high school 6 years ago (I know and I want to fly planes, go figure) and have not looked at it since. ARCO book has good practice problems, and once again, you can use the Navy & Air Force sections for more practice. Learning the concepts, though, helps a great deal and the ARCO book does not help with that, so I bought an SAT II Physics book and the Barron's Flight Officer study guide. The SAT book was far too in depth and did nothing but confuse me. The Barron's book did a great job at explaining the concepts in ways that I could understand, so I highly recommend it for that (unfortunately, that's all the Barron's book is good for).
Spatial: Sadly, ARCO book is the best practice for this. Know those questions well enough to the point where you can do all 35 practice problems in under 10 minutes and get them all right, since the questions on the actual test are harder and time is a concern. User MMX1 has a fantastic wikipedia link (it used to be a columbia link but moved) with a strategy for these questions and it can be found here.
http://marinegouge.com/mediawiki-1.6.6/index.php?title=Aviation_Selection_Test_Battery
This site has great gouge and I would know everything on there.
Aviation/Nautical: Nautical stuff is very basic even to me, and I'm a civilian with no boating experience. Study the ARCO book and whatever basic stuff you can find on the Internet for this.
The aviation material is far more in depth, but studying for it is very easy if you study the right stuff. The FAA handbook can be found here online and will have just about everything you need for the aviation section.
http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/aviation/pilot_handbook/
KNOW KNOW KNOW chapters 1-4 completely in & out. Chapter 12 also is useful. Additionally, the ARCO book and the Barron's book have a pretty decent selection of practice problems.
Hope this helps, sorry for the long post!
-Joe
I just wanted to say thanks for everyone's help. I found this site a month ago after I took the ASTB for the first time, figuring that the ARCO book would be all I needed, and scored a 5/5/6 50 and I wanted to improve. I just finished the test this morning and scored a 7/7/9 60 which is awesome to me (I'm looking NFO so I'm pretty happy about that 9). The gouges on this site and studying a few hours a week was all that I needed. I'm not sure how a lot of people on this site seem to have gotten perfect scores without studying, but if you're like me and not that gifted, it doesn't take much studying to do well if you study the right material.
This was my mistake the first time I took the test. I knew the ARCO material in and out, but that book is just one of a few sources that you should look at (sorry if this is redundant from other posts, but it can't hurt):
Math: Study/Do practice problems from the ARCO book for both the Navy & Air Force practice exams (they are almost identical, and this stuff is all about practice)...math is my strong point but if it's not yours, make sure that you KNOW algebra, as I would say this is 75% of the test.
Verbal: Despite what the ARCO book says, this test is ALL reading comprehension. Very hard to study for since it is mostly core concepts you learned when you were younger. Best advice that I have is to try and throw out any previous knowledge you have and just answer the questions based on the passages given (sounds dumb until you've tried a few of these things).
Mechanical Comprehension: By far my weakest section, as I was horrible at physics in high school 6 years ago (I know and I want to fly planes, go figure) and have not looked at it since. ARCO book has good practice problems, and once again, you can use the Navy & Air Force sections for more practice. Learning the concepts, though, helps a great deal and the ARCO book does not help with that, so I bought an SAT II Physics book and the Barron's Flight Officer study guide. The SAT book was far too in depth and did nothing but confuse me. The Barron's book did a great job at explaining the concepts in ways that I could understand, so I highly recommend it for that (unfortunately, that's all the Barron's book is good for).
Spatial: Sadly, ARCO book is the best practice for this. Know those questions well enough to the point where you can do all 35 practice problems in under 10 minutes and get them all right, since the questions on the actual test are harder and time is a concern. User MMX1 has a fantastic wikipedia link (it used to be a columbia link but moved) with a strategy for these questions and it can be found here.
http://marinegouge.com/mediawiki-1.6.6/index.php?title=Aviation_Selection_Test_Battery
This site has great gouge and I would know everything on there.
Aviation/Nautical: Nautical stuff is very basic even to me, and I'm a civilian with no boating experience. Study the ARCO book and whatever basic stuff you can find on the Internet for this.
The aviation material is far more in depth, but studying for it is very easy if you study the right stuff. The FAA handbook can be found here online and will have just about everything you need for the aviation section.
http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/aviation/pilot_handbook/
KNOW KNOW KNOW chapters 1-4 completely in & out. Chapter 12 also is useful. Additionally, the ARCO book and the Barron's book have a pretty decent selection of practice problems.
Hope this helps, sorry for the long post!
-Joe
