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1,001 questions about the ASTB (post your scores & ask your questions here!)

MikeMillerUK

Nearing the end of Primary
Contributor
Hey everybody, I'm a longtime lurker and just joined a short while ago. I am set to take my ASTB next month and besides all the incredible info I'm getting from previous posts I was hoping I could get a little more direct help on the ANIT section of the test. I've been hearing that it is mostly set on Aviation history with only a few questions covering flight instruments, airport lighting systems, and Nautical terms. Does anybody have a suggestion on what to study more of? Any help will be appreciated greatly.
What you've been hearing is exactly right. Study some military aviation history, if you can.
 

ChristianM

New Member
I recently took the ASTB this past Monday with another candidate, who tested before me. She did better than me, but I scored halfway decently for my first time. I was hoping to for a 4/6/6 but managed to scrape with a 3/5/4 and OAR of 42. My OAR was pretty low considering I missed quite a few math problems from frustration and it capped me, with around 8 mins left. I will say though, the Mechanical comprehension was COMPLETELY different than the books tell you. Between the other candidate and I, we had every book for the ASTB on the market, and it was almost a waste. The reading was straight forward, just heavily military oriented, still basic "find the answer hidden in the paragraph" questions. The Aviation and Nautical Information section really threw me for a loop because it was again, totally different than what I had previously studied. And lastly, my first time with the HOTAS throttle and joystick had me yelling like I was spawn dying in COD. Let me explain...

Math - Dont rush through it like I did. I missed simple questions and It was my own fault. I did see some basic algebra, geometry, roots, exponents, etc. Like i said, I didnt get very far because it cut me off due to nervousness and trying to take it too fast. Just remember its an unlimited amount of questions from a bank that pulls based off of your answers (right to wrong).

Reading - straight forward section. Dense military paragraphs for most, other random ones. Just play the game and find the right answer. Not to vague, not to specific, just right.

Mechanical Comp. - This really confused me: I studied 3 months teaching myself physics, forces, weight distribution, gears, pulleys, etc., and not a damn question was on any of it. My test was about 98% heat/temperature, electricity and indirect force questions of aircrafts. I barely studied electricity (besides the basics) and it screwed me. And Im not talking like "What does this symbol mean? A. a diode", it was some bizaare crap that you would really have to know had you studied electricity. I encountered 1 pulley question and 1 fulcrum weight-distribution question and about 2 other weight questions. Everything else was what I mentioned. Do yourself a favor and make sure you heavily study ALL of it(where ever you can find) and not just the 1 page your book has on electricity.

Aviation/Nautical Info. - Again, 1 or 2 questions about the actual layout of a ship or plane, 1 question on force and I recall a question on where the flaps were located. EVERYTHING else was on history. EVERYTHING. I specifically remember reading "In what war did the EA-6B make its first appearance to blah blah blah?" I was like WTF HOW COULD ANYONE KNOW THIS!?! Of course, if you had heavily studied history, then perhaps you would. My book did not cover much, mostly the technical side of how a plane works, the forces, etc. (And a ship of course, with nautical terminology). It was at that point I started to yell at the screen. Also by this point I was pissed because I knew my applied knowledge was basically useless and I wasn't going to pass.

HOTAS - So i tried my luck on this joyride. Let me tell ya, if you've never tried to use these devices, please practice. It will throw you off so bad if you aren't prepared. I know there is really no way to prepare for it, just try to mentally. You could use Microsoft Flight Sim but the test portion of the ASTB is just a bit absurd. You basically start off learning how the controls work in practice mode, then you do the real thing. Think of Galaga where you have a little ship going up and down vertically and you use the throttle to follow it. Easy, right? Wrong. The throttle is hyper sensitive, so you barely touch it and it goes 100 mph. Trying to follow that little plane was quite fun. It goes up and down at different speeds, so it can be frustrating. Secondly, you have to do this again, but with the joystick which is inverted only up and down. Now, I knew it was inverted, just like a plane, but for some reason, my mind would think all of it is inverted so of course then started more yelling when Im chasing the little plane flying around everywhere and my target is stuck in the upper left corner when I've got it pulled that way thinking its going opposite. This little exercise is like pin the tail on the slow-then-fast-then-slow donkey. Eventually you get to do them together which is where I had my examiner almost crying laughing because I was yelling "THIS SHIT IS NOTHING LIKE ACTUAL FLYING!!!!!" Excuse the language but I was quite mad. I've flow a Cessna a few times and it is not that difficult. But whatever. You also will encounter a dichotic listening exercise, which is the easiest portion of the test, I thought. It will tell you which ear to listen to, and then tap a button based on even and odd numbers. If it says RIGHT then listen to your right ear, and viceaversa. But when all the chaos comes together, hold on to your britches because you're in for a ride. You get to press buttons while listening, follow mr. vertical plane and then follow mr. chaos plane as it flies at different speeds bouncing around like a pong ball on crack. I applaud those of you who get a 6 and above on that section. I got a 5 for my first time and will probably score higher the next time i take it, but damn, that was some of the most ridiculous stuff I've ever done to test my aptitude to fly a plane.

My advice: Study extra hard on the portions you're not sure about. The UAV section is simple, just practice til you get it all right, or memorize the degree headings. I got most of them right minus a few when i confused the tip of the yellow wedge for opposite directions. Don't do that. It tells you exactly how to answer the different questions and headings and its not that hard. Unlimited tries for practice, you'll get it. Anyways, just be prepared for anything and everything on this test. I have no background in aviation besides the things I've taught myself, learned over the past year and the lessons I've taken for flying. I'm confident Ill test much better the second time around, and hopefully you find this humorous and helpful to when you take the exam. Good luck!

J. Thorp

Weird. My first attempt I got maybe one or two history questions and the rest were about the aircraft parts, like "what is the primary purpose of the flaps". I would say the thing to take away from this is that the experience is always different.
 

JKMCC

New Member
There is a joystick portion now? I was on a computer but no joystick or flight sim section. Did this replace the spacial apperception?
 

milfordguy

New Member
There is a joystick portion now? I was on a computer but no joystick or flight sim section. Did this replace the spacial apperception?

Yes, the there is a joystick section with a throttle as well.

And no, from my understanding the new spacial apperception section is the UAV section that they have updated it with.
 

RuleofLawviation

T1 Advanced
Hey everybody, I'm looking for a page on a thread that I found on this site a while ago. It had a bunch of youtube videos about mechanical comprehension (probably 5-6 on one page). Unfortunately my computer did an automatic restart before I could save the videos so I lost them. I've gone back through many, many pages of threads and can't seem to find them. Does anybody else know what I'm talking about? and if so, could you point me to the thread and page?

Thanks!
 

RuleofLawviation

T1 Advanced
Hello everybody,

I’ve been reading AirWarriors for quite some time now and scoured the forums before I took the ASTB-E this morning. It is now my turn to share my experience. All tips and hints in this gouge will be in italics. First though I want to thank everyone’s input, tips, and gouges. It has no doubt benefitted me throughout the entire process thus far and it will no doubt continue to benefit future applicants.

I got to the recruiting office bright and early at 0700 even though my recruiter said that the proctor wouldn’t be there until 0730. I wanted to be sure to start as early as possible so I could get to work after the exam. The computer was booted up and the proctor put in all of my information.

Even though I’ve read what seems like all of the threads on here and felt as though I knew the test format, I still read every single direction. READ all of the directions. This helped ease my mind and alleviate any conscious or subconscious concerns I had. My mind was free to focus on the problems in the exam and not whether I made a stupid error by not following the directions. We spend a lot of time preparing for this; why not take a couple of extra seconds to carefully read through the directions?

OAR – Math

I thought that this section was fairly easy. The questions were mainly distance and average questions. I had some compounding interest questions, probability questions, and how long it takes two people to do work. I didn’t have any volume, area, or perimeter questions. I knew I was doing well when I got to a log question. I answered that right (I’m guessing so because otherwise it would have dropped me down to another easy word problem) and got another. I don’t think I got the second one right because it took me to a matrix multiplication problem. Unfortunately I didn’t have that on my list of topics to study and it has been over 7 years since I had a math class so I couldn’t even eliminate a choice. I had to guess. That was the last question I had on the test.

I felt really good about this section up until the last two questions. I had about 7-8 minutes left. I’m guessing I answered 20-25 questions and I’m pretty sure I got all but maybe 2-4 correct.

There were a couple of red herrings. Some of the responses (and this is true for the other two sections of the OAR too) look like they might be the right answer but are not. Just remember to work through the whole problem and don’t jump to any conclusions.

OAR – Reading Comprehension

Some of the readings were fairly dry and trite. There’s not a lot of ways you can study for this. However, if you’re not a big reader, then start reading. I almost always have my kindle in hand which I think helps me to retain information. I didn’t find that I had to go back over a passage. As boring as a passage may be, think to yourself, “wow, this is really interesting.” Convince yourself that you are genuinely interested in what the passage is saying. This will help you retain all of the information.

If that doesn’t work and you still can’t find the correct answer, find faults in the answer choices. Extract key words or phrases from a seemingly correct statement and use those words to prove that it is incorrect. This is where my legal background came in handy. Know the differences between “shall,” “may,” “must,” etc.

I answered quite a few questions on this section and was stopped with about 4 minutes left on the timer. I kept getting very stale questions so I figured I was doing okay on it.

OAR – Mechanical Comprehension

I actually got some simple machine questions. I also got some general electricity questions about diodes, amplifiers, resistors, etc. I’m guessing that this was my worst subject because it was on my practice exams that I took at home and because I kept getting some pretty easy mechanical advantage questions.

It comes as no surprise to me that I remember the least about this section! Sorry, my advice: just learn as much as you can about thermal conductivity, dynamics, forces, atmosphere, electricity, fluids, etc. on top of the easy concepts that the study guides give you. Watch a ton of physics/electricity videos on YouTube and if there’s something you don’t understand, then watch a follow up video.

Aviation/Nautical Information

This section flew by (no pun intended). I thought it was very easy and it only took me 5 minutes. That actually had me a bit concerned. The first question was a starboard/port question. Free points there!

Know the basic concepts of flight. Lift, gravity, thrust, drag. Know Bernoulli’s Principle. If you don’t know or didn’t take the time to learn Bernoulli then sorry, but you have no business being in any aviation-related industry. Know basic Navy terminology. The index in the back of the Accepted Inc. book has a pretty good list. I got the basic ones: beam, bridge, starboard, hatch, etc.

I did not see any questions on Navy personal. Nothing about blue shirts or grapes. I also didn’t have any history questions. I did have a question on the classification of Air Force planes. This was so over my head that I just guessed. I figured that it was one of the harder ones that they could throw at me so I took solace in that I must have been doing well. The answer choices were CVAB, CFTS, etc. (those might not be exactly correct but you get the idea, just four answer choices each starting with C accompanied by three other letters in caps).

NATFI

I have some qualms about this section. For one, they ask you a bunch of character questions where they force you to choose between two really great answers or two really bad answers. It makes you feel like an immoral asshole. It really chaps my rear thinking that some Phd probably sat in some office thinking of some algorithm that can tell whether we are suited to be in the cockpit when it really makes no difference at all. Of course, I’m being cynical. You don’t know what you don’t know so maybe there is some method to the madness.

It’s just unfortunate that you see an option that says, “I always comply with office policy.” Regardless of what the other answer choice is, a lot of us have to miss work to take this test. I did. Moreover, I didn’t tell my boss where I was going. If I let in on what I was doing, then they might start looking for my replacement. I don’t want to jeopardize my good job when there is a chance that the Navy might not select me. So being predisposed to answer a certain way might have an unintended consequence on exam takers. Again, who knows, maybe the powers that be have taken that into account.

Just be truthful in each and every question and don’t think about what might look good or bad.

PBM

I have read a lot of sour posts about this section. I was expecting the worst so I didn’t think it was all that bad. My biggest complaint is in the directions. The screen has a black background and the lettering is in tiny yellow font. I don’t have any issues with eye sight (passed MEPS with no issues: 20/15 in both eyes), but this just irritated me more than anything. It makes it seem so antiquated. Format a better UI to at least try and conform to the 21st century!

The UAV section was pretty easy and straightforward. Again, read all of the directions just in case. Some of the posts on here have said that you could do an unlimited amount of practice problems. The test only gave me 8 practice questions. But that’s okay though because I was down to about 1.5 seconds at the end. I got 4 wrong on the actual test itself which kind of irks me. I still think that I got them right and that the test is wrong but who knows, maybe in haste I made a mistake! Act like you’re in the cockpit on this one and you are flying towards the marker. That is the way to ace this section.

The dichotic listening portion was really easy, although I did find it easier to pay attention to one ear over the other. That wasn’t too difficult to overcome though. Read the directions and listen for Right and Left respectively. This is the easiest part of the exam.

The throttle and joystick was okay. I’m hesitant to call it awful and I’m hesitant to call it easy. There were times when I could keep the crosshairs on the plane for quite a while and then there were times where I felt flustered. Overall though, not too bad. I have virtually zero video game/flight simulator experience so who knows if that would have helped. I don’t think that my pilot’s license or 150+ hours of flight time helped. This portion is nothing like actual flying. I do play piano though so I found it kind of similar (just on different axis) to reading the treble and base clefs. STAY CALM is the number one piece of advice for this section. The second piece of advice is to remember to reset during the emergency procedures section. As soon as you adjust the throttle and what not, hit the clutch button to reset it.

Final Score – 57/6/6/6

All in all, I’m content my score. It doesn’t blow my skirt up but my recruiter said that I should be in good shape for SNA.

I’d be happy to answer any questions that I can, so if you have any, don’t hesitate to message me.
 

ChristianM

New Member
Took the test today and got a 53 5/5/5/. This was my second attempt. I'm really dissapointed in my score. I went in to the test confident and even afterward I was expecting way higher than that.
I have to wait until may to retake for my third attempt. I'm just deflated now from my lackluster score.
 

RuleofLawviation

T1 Advanced
Took the test today and got a 53 5/5/5/. This was my second attempt. I'm really dissapointed in my score. I went in to the test confident and even afterward I was expecting way higher than that.
I have to wait until may to retake for my third attempt. I'm just deflated now from my lackluster score.
Keep your head up. You also might want to talk to your OR about possibly submitting a package anyway. Those technically qualify so depending on your gpa and other qualifications, it might be worth a try. Worst case scenario., you take it again like you're already planning to.

Where do you think you can improve, specifically? Try and figure out exactly what you need to improve on e.g. Simplifying radicals, naval history, electrical resistors, etc and then completely master those areas
 

ChristianM

New Member
Keep your head up. You also might want to talk to your OR about possibly submitting a package anyway. Those technically qualify so depending on your gpa and other qualifications, it might be worth a try. Worst case scenario., you take it again like you're already planning to.

Where do you think you can improve, specifically? Try and figure out exactly what you need to improve on e.g. Simplifying radicals, naval history, electrical resistors, etc and then completely master those areas

Thanks. The parts I'd say I knew well were the basic questions in the math, reading, and mechanical sections. But once I got the basic question right and it went to more advanced stuff I couldn't remember any of it. There were a few questions on the NAFTI section about terminology that I didn't know.

One question I remember specifically was "What is a "bolter" when talking about aircraft carriers?" The choices were A) a touch and go B) an arresting wire snapping C) A hard landing D) I don't remember D.

I think I chose A) but I can't remember now. I just knew that I was completely guessing.
 

PurdueNROTCPilot

Boiler Up!
I took the ASTB-E for the first time a few weeks ago. All in all it was basically exactly what I expected from the study guides I found online. The most difficult section for me was probably the math portion as it's been a couple years since I have taken a math course and I am a little rusty.

For some perspective I am a Pro Flight student at Purdue with C's in both semesters of Calc/Physics. I studied for a few hours before I took the ASTB using the study guide provided here: http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmotc/nami/Documents/ASTB_SampleQuestions_13May14.pdf.

The biggest pain for me in the test was the PBM. The map orientation questions went fairly quickly for me, although I think I may have missed a couple. The tracking part was the biggest issue for me. I have my CPL with multi/instrument/CFI and a BE400 SIC type rating and it did not prepare me at all for this section, and it was honestly extremely frustrating to try and chase the planes around on the screen.

Overall my score came out to be 64/9/9/8 which was surprising to me mainly because compared to the engineering students in our unit here I feel as though I am quite far behind in math/physics skills. Feel free to ask me any specifics about the test!
 

THEanimal

Member
I took the ASTB-E for the first time a few weeks ago. All in all it was basically exactly what I expected from the study guides I found online. The most difficult section for me was probably the math portion as it's been a couple years since I have taken a math course and I am a little rusty.

For some perspective I am a Pro Flight student at Purdue with C's in both semesters of Calc/Physics. I studied for a few hours before I took the ASTB using the study guide provided here: http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmotc/nami/Documents/ASTB_SampleQuestions_13May14.pdf.

The biggest pain for me in the test was the PBM. The map orientation questions went fairly quickly for me, although I think I may have missed a couple. The tracking part was the biggest issue for me. I have my CPL with multi/instrument/CFI and a BE400 SIC type rating and it did not prepare me at all for this section, and it was honestly extremely frustrating to try and chase the planes around on the screen.

Overall my score came out to be 64/9/9/8 which was surprising to me mainly because compared to the engineering students in our unit here I feel as though I am quite far behind in math/physics skills. Feel free to ask me any specifics about the test!

Those are stellar scores, good job!
 
Hello everybody,

I’ve been reading AirWarriors for quite some time now and scoured the forums before I took the ASTB-E this morning. It is now my turn to share my experience. All tips and hints in this gouge will be in italics. First though I want to thank everyone’s input, tips, and gouges. It has no doubt benefitted me throughout the entire process thus far and it will no doubt continue to benefit future applicants.

I got to the recruiting office bright and early at 0700 even though my recruiter said that the proctor wouldn’t be there until 0730. I wanted to be sure to start as early as possible so I could get to work after the exam. The computer was booted up and the proctor put in all of my information.

Even though I’ve read what seems like all of the threads on here and felt as though I knew the test format, I still read every single direction. READ all of the directions. This helped ease my mind and alleviate any conscious or subconscious concerns I had. My mind was free to focus on the problems in the exam and not whether I made a stupid error by not following the directions. We spend a lot of time preparing for this; why not take a couple of extra seconds to carefully read through the directions?

OAR – Math

I thought that this section was fairly easy. The questions were mainly distance and average questions. I had some compounding interest questions, probability questions, and how long it takes two people to do work. I didn’t have any volume, area, or perimeter questions. I knew I was doing well when I got to a log question. I answered that right (I’m guessing so because otherwise it would have dropped me down to another easy word problem) and got another. I don’t think I got the second one right because it took me to a matrix multiplication problem. Unfortunately I didn’t have that on my list of topics to study and it has been over 7 years since I had a math class so I couldn’t even eliminate a choice. I had to guess. That was the last question I had on the test.

I felt really good about this section up until the last two questions. I had about 7-8 minutes left. I’m guessing I answered 20-25 questions and I’m pretty sure I got all but maybe 2-4 correct.

There were a couple of red herrings. Some of the responses (and this is true for the other two sections of the OAR too) look like they might be the right answer but are not. Just remember to work through the whole problem and don’t jump to any conclusions.

OAR – Reading Comprehension

Some of the readings were fairly dry and trite. There’s not a lot of ways you can study for this. However, if you’re not a big reader, then start reading. I almost always have my kindle in hand which I think helps me to retain information. I didn’t find that I had to go back over a passage. As boring as a passage may be, think to yourself, “wow, this is really interesting.” Convince yourself that you are genuinely interested in what the passage is saying. This will help you retain all of the information.

If that doesn’t work and you still can’t find the correct answer, find faults in the answer choices. Extract key words or phrases from a seemingly correct statement and use those words to prove that it is incorrect. This is where my legal background came in handy. Know the differences between “shall,” “may,” “must,” etc.

I answered quite a few questions on this section and was stopped with about 4 minutes left on the timer. I kept getting very stale questions so I figured I was doing okay on it.

OAR – Mechanical Comprehension

I actually got some simple machine questions. I also got some general electricity questions about diodes, amplifiers, resistors, etc. I’m guessing that this was my worst subject because it was on my practice exams that I took at home and because I kept getting some pretty easy mechanical advantage questions.

It comes as no surprise to me that I remember the least about this section! Sorry, my advice: just learn as much as you can about thermal conductivity, dynamics, forces, atmosphere, electricity, fluids, etc. on top of the easy concepts that the study guides give you. Watch a ton of physics/electricity videos on YouTube and if there’s something you don’t understand, then watch a follow up video.

Aviation/Nautical Information

This section flew by (no pun intended). I thought it was very easy and it only took me 5 minutes. That actually had me a bit concerned. The first question was a starboard/port question. Free points there!

Know the basic concepts of flight. Lift, gravity, thrust, drag. Know Bernoulli’s Principle. If you don’t know or didn’t take the time to learn Bernoulli then sorry, but you have no business being in any aviation-related industry. Know basic Navy terminology. The index in the back of the Accepted Inc. book has a pretty good list. I got the basic ones: beam, bridge, starboard, hatch, etc.

I did not see any questions on Navy personal. Nothing about blue shirts or grapes. I also didn’t have any history questions. I did have a question on the classification of Air Force planes. This was so over my head that I just guessed. I figured that it was one of the harder ones that they could throw at me so I took solace in that I must have been doing well. The answer choices were CVAB, CFTS, etc. (those might not be exactly correct but you get the idea, just four answer choices each starting with C accompanied by three other letters in caps).

NATFI

I have some qualms about this section. For one, they ask you a bunch of character questions where they force you to choose between two really great answers or two really bad answers. It makes you feel like an immoral asshole. It really chaps my rear thinking that some Phd probably sat in some office thinking of some algorithm that can tell whether we are suited to be in the cockpit when it really makes no difference at all. Of course, I’m being cynical. You don’t know what you don’t know so maybe there is some method to the madness.

It’s just unfortunate that you see an option that says, “I always comply with office policy.” Regardless of what the other answer choice is, a lot of us have to miss work to take this test. I did. Moreover, I didn’t tell my boss where I was going. If I let in on what I was doing, then they might start looking for my replacement. I don’t want to jeopardize my good job when there is a chance that the Navy might not select me. So being predisposed to answer a certain way might have an unintended consequence on exam takers. Again, who knows, maybe the powers that be have taken that into account.

Just be truthful in each and every question and don’t think about what might look good or bad.

PBM

I have read a lot of sour posts about this section. I was expecting the worst so I didn’t think it was all that bad. My biggest complaint is in the directions. The screen has a black background and the lettering is in tiny yellow font. I don’t have any issues with eye sight (passed MEPS with no issues: 20/15 in both eyes), but this just irritated me more than anything. It makes it seem so antiquated. Format a better UI to at least try and conform to the 21st century!

The UAV section was pretty easy and straightforward. Again, read all of the directions just in case. Some of the posts on here have said that you could do an unlimited amount of practice problems. The test only gave me 8 practice questions. But that’s okay though because I was down to about 1.5 seconds at the end. I got 4 wrong on the actual test itself which kind of irks me. I still think that I got them right and that the test is wrong but who knows, maybe in haste I made a mistake! Act like you’re in the cockpit on this one and you are flying towards the marker. That is the way to ace this section.

The dichotic listening portion was really easy, although I did find it easier to pay attention to one ear over the other. That wasn’t too difficult to overcome though. Read the directions and listen for Right and Left respectively. This is the easiest part of the exam.

The throttle and joystick was okay. I’m hesitant to call it awful and I’m hesitant to call it easy. There were times when I could keep the crosshairs on the plane for quite a while and then there were times where I felt flustered. Overall though, not too bad. I have virtually zero video game/flight simulator experience so who knows if that would have helped. I don’t think that my pilot’s license or 150+ hours of flight time helped. This portion is nothing like actual flying. I do play piano though so I found it kind of similar (just on different axis) to reading the treble and base clefs. STAY CALM is the number one piece of advice for this section. The second piece of advice is to remember to reset during the emergency procedures section. As soon as you adjust the throttle and what not, hit the clutch button to reset it.

Final Score – 57/6/6/6

All in all, I’m content my score. It doesn’t blow my skirt up but my recruiter said that I should be in good shape for SNA.

I’d be happy to answer any questions that I can, so if you have any, don’t hesitate to message me.


Did they have the spatial section with the diving/climbing angles and the six choices?

Not sure if this is still included in the new version. I take my test for the first time on the 24th.
 
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