I've been lurking around these parts for the past couple of months in preparation of my exam. I took it today and got 66 9/9/8. I'm not going to repeat anything that has already been said, but I feel that I have a few important things to make note of:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MATH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT TO STUDY! It is taken into account for your OAR and it is heavily weighted in both your AQR and FOFAR. That's a huge portion of your scores. I'm very surprised that I never saw this point made on this forum, although I only read about 1/3 of the pages. I'm a math major, so my background pretty much carried me through this test. Study everything you see in the math gouges and know it well. I saw at least one of every type of math problem I can think of. More bold explanation marks to emphasize this part:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE NATFI IS NOT USED FOR ANY OF YOUR SCORES. At least, according to everything I've read, I haven't found what section it's used for. Since it doesn't seem to be used for a score, don't stress about your answers. Just answer honestly and use this section as a long break.
UAV NO LONGER GIVES YOU UNLIMITED PRACTICE. I got eight practice problems and it threw me into the real thing.
I didn't draw the compass. I would put my cursor where north would be if the arrow were pointing north. Assume the arrow is pointing south-east, and tells you to choose the north parking lot. That is two lots counter-clockwise from where the cursor currently is. Count "1... 2..." to the left, and you're there. Get used to this method and you can do it faster in your head than you could with a compass. I didn't miss any here and averaged 1.5-2 seconds.
ASK YOUR RECRUITER WHERE THE NEAREST POSSIBLE TESTING CENTER IS. Maybe this is obvious to you, but I didn't want to begin my military career by annoyingly questioning my recruiting officer, so I figured if there was a closer testing site, he'd have told me. That's how I ended up driving three hours to Atlanta when I could have driven one hour to Montgomery, and didn't find out it was an option until after my test.
BRING EARPLUGS. My testing center decided to have a whole-ass promotion ceremony outside of my door, so I'm very happy to have brought a pair.
THROTTLE & STICK. People have mentioned that it's inverted, but haven't covered it in enough detail. Maybe my test was just messed up, but be prepared:
- Push the throttle forward and the 1-dimensional cross-hairs go upwards.
- Push the stick forward and the 2-dimensional cross-hairs go down.
Unless your hand-eye coordination is immaculate, you will not be comfortable doing this, so get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I was seemingly incompetent at this but still got an 8. It's supposed to make you feel like an infant, so just have fun with it.
I don't have any advice that hasn't been given in the past pages. This site has been my most valuable resource.
Annoying side story: During the listening portion, my headphones were playing
both letters/numbers in
each ear.
i.e. If left said "A" and right said "8", both came out of each speaker at the same time, so I had absolutely no way to distinguish any difference. At first I thought I was auditorily handicapped, but I told those in charge, and after two hours they got it fixed and the PBM section became much easier. Thus, my 2.5-hour test became a 5-hour test.
www.triviumtestprep.com
