I just took the ASTB-E for the first time today. It was much harder than I expected it to be. Every subtest caught me off guard. I used the marine gouge, astb-e practice problems and proprofs flashcards to study but found the actual test questions to be of a higher caliber. The bulk of my time spent preparing was trying to cram aviation and nautical information into my head. I pretty much winged it for math, reading and mechanical. I read about the PBM but didn't really prepare for it in any meaningful way. Even though I felt like I was failing the whole time, I did end up with a 77 9/8/9, so I'll try to share my experience with the test here.
Math
One thing I noticed was that there weren't really very many questions that you can just look at and read the answer off (like some of the practice material). No nonsense with order of operations or "what's 0.4^2?" I saw that one in a practice booklet in Barnes and Noble. Surprisingly, I got a question on sequences. That is, I had to identify a pattern in a series of numbers and then find the sum. I haven't seen anyone else report this type of math problem showing up on the exam. I also got a "perfect number" question. I did not receive any logarithm or matrix questions. I did see multiple fractional exponent problems. Keep in mind they weren't just like "what is 3^(3/5)?" but an entire equation or expression with multiple fractional exponents (mine were negative) that needs to be cleverly simplified. It isn't exactly trivial. I did not get cut off on this section. I ran out of time. This freaked me out because the pattern seemed to be that those people who are doing well get cut off early. I'm not sure how many questions I answered, but my strategy was to take my time and focus on getting correct answers.
Reading
This is one section where the study material is pretty spot on. I don't have much to say other than read carefully, sometimes it comes down to just a single word. The long passages aren't always the hard questions. I don't know how one studies for this type of testing. Hopefully you've spent a lot of time reading books in your spare time. It's so easy to let your eyes glaze over and finish the passage without really engaging it. Sometimes I had to read a paragraph 3 or 4 times. Same strategy as before, focus on correct answers as opposed to guessing and going for a high number of questions answered. Again, I ran out of time (panicking at this point).
Mechanical
I majored in physics and was expecting to breeze through this portion. Turns out the questions are quite different from actual physics problems (and quite different from the study material I read). One thing I can't stress enough is this: be comfortable with balancing forces and torques. It's easy and there will most likely be several problems that deal with this one concept. The calculations can generally be done in your head. There is much less computing in this section than in the math section. Focus on conceptually understanding topics. I had a few circuit questions... a couple fluid flow questions... one thermo question... They cover a broad range of disciplines. I had a question about sonic booms and what happens to the gas around one. Some of these questions can absolutely be answered immediately. But on the other hand, some of these questions will refer to some tool or piece of equipment that you've never seen before and you're essentially forced to guess. My advice is to not waste time on those questions, you'll know them when you see them. I once more ran out of time (oh god why).
Aviation and Nautical Info
This part kicked my ass. I guessed on way more questions than ones I knew the answer for. Most of the questions were not anything that I studied (using the above material). I suppose if you have the background for it... you'll do fine. But I didn't and the studying was pretty much a waste of time. I don't think I saw a single "history" question. And there were only 2 or 3 "parts of the airplane/boat" questions (I was counting on there being lots of those). Noteworthy: I was asked basically the same question twice worded differently. It was on pitch. So yeah, know the axes of flight. I actually got kicked off with a lot of time remaining for this section.
Trait Facet Inventory
This part is just funny. It's a nice break before the hell to come, enjoy it. I did not go for consistency, just treated each question as independent. I finished with a lot of time remaining. Obviously no need to study.
Performance Based Measure
UAV
Other than reading about it briefly, I did nothing to prepare for this. I practiced until I felt comfortable (unlimited practice for this part). There's definitely a learning curve. I got my times down from like 8-10 seconds to around 1-4 seconds. Sometimes less than 1 s. Take advantage of the practice. One thing I noticed is that I had a tendency to wait until the guy is done talking for each question. You can cut him off by clicking on the correct parking lot as soon as you see it, getting a time of less than 1 s. My strategy for finding the correct parking lot was as follows. If your heading is N, S, E or W the answer can be ascertained fairly quickly just from observation. If the heading is "between" cardinal directions (like NE, SW, etc.) I would find the cardinal direction immediately to the left of the arrow and then use that as my reference point for the parking lots, as it always corresponds to the top left parking lot.
Example... arrow is pointing SE -> you observe that to the left of the arrow lies the cardinal direction east -> you now know that the top left parking lot is the east parking lot -> voice tells you to locate the north parking lot -> visualize a compass superimposed on the parking lots using your reference point to identify the northern parking lot (bottom left).
This isn't always the quickest way to get the answer, but if you practice you can get to be pretty consistently fast using this method. The beauty of it is its formulaic nature. It works every time, no time staring at the screen getting confused for 10 seconds and stressing yourself out. I only made 1 mistake and it was just stupid.
Dichotic Listening and Tracking
Wow. I thought this was going to be fun, it was just horrible. The throttle and stick are so jerky and unintuitive. Personally, I didn't realize that the listening would be so confusing. The letters and numbers play into both ears simultaneously; not one after the other. I recommend the head tilt strategy.
When the tasks start stacking up, some people prefer to prioritize one objective or the other. I just tried to divide my attention among all three activities because that's what the instructions said. I did prioritize emergency procedures l, however. I wrote them down but didn't end up needing to look.
That's all I've got. Good luck everyone. I'll be shooting for the October ish pilot board.