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

[Kevin Farrell]

Oh yeah, I have a few books and a stack of printouts. I'm pretty nervous taking the test again, especially the new version. The only section I am really nervous for is math, mainly word problems. I'm having a hard time studying because I bounce between topics too fast.

A good study method is to identify the sections that you need work in, focus on doing a dozen or so of those type of questions, and then move on to the next area. Alternate reviewing tougher sections with lighter review topics. Keeps the mind fresh and can sometimes transfer the feeling of "I got this" from the easy stuff to the more difficult.

Take your time, don't get burned out, and try to relax as much as possible.

Just a word of warning, I thought the English comprehension portion was going to be a breeze, and ended up being a tougher section for me. The passages were very dense and the answers were all very similar and could all be true. Just don't treat any section as a gimme.

Best of luck!

 

[flynavy830]

A good study method is to identify the sections that you need work in, focus on doing a dozen or so of those type of questions, and then move on to the next area. Alternate reviewing tougher sections with lighter review topics. Keeps the mind fresh and can sometimes transfer the feeling of "I got this" from the easy stuff to the more difficult.

Take your time, don't get burned out, and try to relax as much as possible.

Just a word of warning, I thought the English comprehension portion was going to be a breeze, and ended up being a tougher section for me. The passages were very dense and the answers were all very similar and could all be true. Just don't treat any section as a gimme.

Best of luck!

Thanks. I think my main problem the first time around was what someone else mentioned, I would just look at solutions of questions I didn't understand. Sure I walked myself through the ones I didn't understand, but I still didn't understand.

 

[Doc Walsh]

You are in a tough spot, I don't know if you could take the ASTB again and make the next board, and given the age on your profile you need to be in OCS by the end of Nov to meet commissioning age, I would roll the dice and see what happens, even then you have a small window to get to OCS.

Thanks for your response NavyOffRec! I really appreciate that! I feel like the rest of my package is pretty solid. Have you seen anyone get selected with OAR scores like mine?

 

[8251fansoffreedom]

hello everyone. wanted to share my ASTB experience today. alittle background about myself. I'm active duty AWF2 P-3c Flight Engineer. I have 1000 hours with a lot of combat experience. I took the ASTB once before and made a 51 5 4 4. i studied my ass off and made a 56 7 9 7 today. i owe most of my success on the test to this web page and i feel obligated to share my experience. I'm stationed in HI and my first time up was after a 3 week long vacation. I relied heavily on my aviation experience thinking i had it in the bag. i was WAY wrong.
OAR:
MATH: I studied khan academy religiously. BEST instruction by far. I had a few questions on nondependent probability. lots of averages problems. one i had no idea had to do was an algebra problem with radians that was equivalent to a certain number of degrees. negative exponents. radical expressions. if a circle has a radius of X how much distance will it cover in X# of revolutions. had a fuel planning question. i finished this portion in time and felt confident about it. no logarithms or matrix questions of work problems i was pretty bummed because i studied the hell out of it. the website from NOMI that talks about whats on the test is very accurate. I studied the gouge that is labeled ASTB personal study guide a lot. great examples of what is on the test.
Reading: not much to talk about. If you want to practice reading "navy speak" go to npc and read all the new NAVADMINS that have come out. very dry and boring. a big part of my job is to take care of my guys so i read these things on the regular. i didn't feel like a did very well on this portion because the questions bounced around in difficulty.
SCIENCE: had questions about mechanical advantage in inclined planes. the principles of fluids and gases charles law, bernoulli's prinicple. pulley problems. angular momentum. if a ball is thrown down at a speed of X and the same ball is up at x speed which one will have the greatest kinetic energy. an airballon flies up in altitude what happens to the game what needs to happen (let air out). i can't remember the rest. my strategy on this was learning as much principles and laws of physics. I watched a ton of videos on youtube from bill nye haha. it worked tho.
ANIT: my best advice is to watch the youtube videos people posted about naval aviation history. the angle of attack video someone posted is badass. its like 1:48 mins long but goes into great detail. learn all your flight surfaces and the axis. i have a lot of experience in this from being a flight engineer. for this section LIVE BY THE GOUGE DIE BY THE GOUGE!!!! i went through every post on this damn site and studied all the questions and answers people posted believe it or not the majority of them were on my test.
Trait Facet inventory:
I tried to answer from the standpoint of what the navy wants in a pilot. honest, doesn't back down from a challenge, obeys authority. i answered them truthfully last time and it apparently was the wrong answers.
PBM: Study and practice the for the spatial practice. its 100% accurate get to where you can answer them within a few seconds without getting them wrong.
the flying and dichotic listening i got creative. Im pretty savvy with garageband on mac and i created 2 tracks panned in them in stereo using a random number and letter generator website (don't remember which one.) then i downloaded a fight pilot video came and used a joystick. i assigned the trigger button to the machine gun and the them button of my left hand to odd numbers. when i play the game only shot the bad guys when i heard an odd or even number in which ever ear. i think this helped more than anything. for the emergency procedures you'll get a screen that says to memorize them. WRITE THEM DOWN LIKE THIS:
FIRE: Big knob down
little knob down
clutch.
Eng failure: Big knob up
Little know Up
clutch
Prop malf:
Big knob DONT MOVE
little knob UP.

this way you don't have to think just DO IT. i got them all done in about 3 sec each.

I was really disappointed the first time i took it and got way discouraged DONT. HARD WORK AND EFFORT PAYS OFF!!!!

if you have any questions let me know. sorry about my lack of grammar and punctuation I'm about 3 beers deep celebrating. GOOD LUCK!

 

[flynavy830]

hello everyone. wanted to share my ASTB experience today. alittle background about myself. I'm active duty AWF2 P-3c Flight Engineer. I have 1000 hours with a lot of combat experience. I took the ASTB once before and made a 51 5 4 4. i studied my ass off and made a 56 7 9 7 today. i owe most of my success on the test to this web page and i feel obligated to share my experience. I'm stationed in HI and my first time up was after a 3 week long vacation. I relied heavily on my aviation experience thinking i had it in the bag. i was WAY wrong.
OAR:
MATH: I studied khan academy religiously. BEST instruction by far. I had a few questions on nondependent probability. lots of averages problems. one i had no idea had to do was an algebra problem with radians that was equivalent to a certain number of degrees. negative exponents. radical expressions. if a circle has a radius of X how much distance will it cover in X# of revolutions. had a fuel planning question. i finished this portion in time and felt confident about it. no logarithms or matrix questions of work problems i was pretty bummed because i studied the hell out of it. the website from NOMI that talks about whats on the test is very accurate. I studied the gouge that is labeled ASTB personal study guide a lot. great examples of what is on the test.
Reading: not much to talk about. If you want to practice reading "navy speak" go to npc and read all the new NAVADMINS that have come out. very dry and boring. a big part of my job is to take care of my guys so i read these things on the regular. i didn't feel like a did very well on this portion because the questions bounced around in difficulty.
SCIENCE: had questions about mechanical advantage in inclined planes. the principles of fluids and gases charles law, bernoulli's prinicple. pulley problems. angular momentum. if a ball is thrown down at a speed of X and the same ball is up at x speed which one will have the greatest kinetic energy. an airballon flies up in altitude what happens to the game what needs to happen (let air out). i can't remember the rest. my strategy on this was learning as much principles and laws of physics. I watched a ton of videos on youtube from bill nye haha. it worked tho.
ANIT: my best advice is to watch the youtube videos people posted about naval aviation history. the angle of attack video someone posted is badass. its like 1:48 mins long but goes into great detail. learn all your flight surfaces and the axis. i have a lot of experience in this from being a flight engineer. for this section LIVE BY THE GOUGE DIE BY THE GOUGE!!!! i went through every post on this damn site and studied all the questions and answers people posted believe it or not the majority of them were on my test.
Trait Facet inventory:
I tried to answer from the standpoint of what the navy wants in a pilot. honest, doesn't back down from a challenge, obeys authority. i answered them truthfully last time and it apparently was the wrong answers.
PBM: Study and practice the for the spatial practice. its 100% accurate get to where you can answer them within a few seconds without getting them wrong.
the flying and dichotic listening i got creative. Im pretty savvy with garageband on mac and i created 2 tracks panned in them in stereo using a random number and letter generator website (don't remember which one.) then i downloaded a fight pilot video came and used a joystick. i assigned the trigger button to the machine gun and the them button of my left hand to odd numbers. when i play the game only shot the bad guys when i heard an odd or even number in which ever ear. i think this helped more than anything. for the emergency procedures you'll get a screen that says to memorize them. WRITE THEM DOWN LIKE THIS:
FIRE: Big knob down
little knob down
clutch.
Eng failure: Big knob up
Little know Up
clutch
Prop malf:
Big knob DONT MOVE
little knob UP.

this way you don't have to think just DO IT. i got them all done in about 3 sec each.

I was really disappointed the first time i took it and got way discouraged DONT. HARD WORK AND EFFORT PAYS OFF!!!!

if you have any questions let me know. sorry about my lack of grammar and punctuation I'm about 3 beers deep celebrating. GOOD LUCK!

Good post. I'm currently watching a lot on Khan academy as well. I'm trying to get a broad study going, because I don't want to master word problems and end up with two or three. Did you use any references for practice problems other than Khan?

 

[8251fansoffreedom]

Good post. I'm currently watching a lot on Khan academy as well. I'm trying to get a broad study going, because I don't want to master word problems and end up with two or three. Did you use any references for practice problems other than Khan?

Go through the page all the gouge sheets with the word problems learn them. The big thing is being able to adapt and solve problems. Purple math too. What I did was went through the gouge found a problem I couldn't solve and Googled 10 just like once I could do it I moved on. Like once a week I would go through and review because you will loose it.

 

[8251fansoffreedom]

Go through the page all the gouge sheets with the word problems learn them. The big thing is being able to adapt and solve problems. Purple math too. What I did was went through the gouge found a problem I couldn't solve and Googled 10 just like once I could do it I moved on. Like once a week I would go through and review because you will loose it.

Be good as hell at algebra. Exponents radicals. Manipulating equations. Start a routine on Khan academy learn as much as u can. I had a lot of geometry questions too. Like area of a certain shape etc...

 

[KORhc]

Anyone that is looking for a quick simple way to learn the basics in logarithms, this website did the trick
http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/algtrig/ATE9/LogPrac.htm

 

[Jacob Frantz]

Good afternoon Shipmates and Friends,

This is my first time posting - at least that I remember. I am an active AWF1 P-3C/EP-3 Flight Engineer out of NAS Whidbey and have just finished my degree and am polishing up my package for submission - hopefully for the first board of this fiscal year!

I wanted to post and let others know what I thought of the (allegedly dreaded) ASTB-E.
FIRST OFF - if you are dreading the ASTB-E or stressing about it, DON'T! Please.. You are wasting energy.

I would also like to state that I am a Private Pilot and that only really helped me with the Aeronautical Science related questions. I also have a degree in airplane stuff, so that helps.

Ok, here we go:

Math Skills
40 minutes or so of pretty basic math, gets harder as you go. I completed maybe 18-22 questions in the time limit - I focused on being correct, rather than answering a ton. Lots of different takes on this section - just work fast, but don't guess or work so fast that you get stupid.
Reading Comprehension
BORING. That being said, you cannot study very well for this - its actually a very good test of your critical "understandability" of what a certain statement means. Some were easy, some not so much. This was 30 minutes I think.
Mechanical Comprehension
Much easier than I was led to believe. I studied too much for this section and should have focused on general physics, chemistry, and the various BASIC fundamentals of fluids, dynamics, and so forth. This section was still easy, but I had to think back to high school level science. I had no electrical questions.
Aviation and Nautical Info
This part is what most likely boosted my score - I love Naval History, so I didn't study. I also know airplanes better than most of my pilots, we all have our hobbies. This section had a lot of stuff found in the FAA Aeronautical Handbook - lots of guides on this site will help you - but don't study too much, a lot of very practical and requires basic common sense. There were few history questions, but it did ask about certain models of aircraft i.e. "What airframe has tilt rotor capability?" (V-22 Osprey).... I enjoyed this part and breezed through it.
Naval Aviation Trait Facet Blah Blah...
So, I may be the only one who hated this section more than the stupid video game, but seriously. I do not enjoy having to select whether I "Skip checking out tools properly when no one is looking" or if "I spend a majority of my days thinking about my failures"... This section is supposed to get to know "you", but all it did was frustrate me. You are supposed to pick the "most correct" answer, but some are so horrible that I am literally lying just to select either statement. Dislike.
Performance Based Measures
Now for the fun part! I was really looking forward to this section. I did nearly perfect on the "UAV Targeting" section. I got excited and get one wrong. PLEASE PRACTICE! You can download the flash cards on this site and they are great! That being said, I am hoping to build a better set - the ones most people download are fine, but I have some great advice that is a surefire way to pass this section with ease. PM me if you would like my personal advice and technique. I will refrain from posting here so that I do not confuse anyone unknowingly.
The dichotic listening is super easy - don't rest your hands on the controls like they say- "hover" your fingers over the buttons to keep you from making an impulsive incorrect decision. That extra nanosecond of space could save you a few points. Try a few techniques, but what I did was look left or right according to the "target ear" to help compartmentalize the string of letters and numbers. Don't stress this part - its easy.
Once you are tested on that you have to chase a couple little airplanes on the screen. The controls vary in sensitivity and so on, so be ready. The joystick was inverted for me, meaning if I wanted to hover my crosshair over the top left corner of the screen, I had to push the stick forward and left. That may be natural for some, but I have over 100 hours of "stick" time, and it was incredibly unnatural for me. My facilitator enjoyed it, but it was a good thing my mother was not watching.
You guessed it. Next you get to listen AND target the airplanes. Still pretty easy, DO NOT get stressed out. Just fly. That is the point of training - and this test is measuring YOUR aptitude in the cockpit(flight station). Relax and focus - you will do fine if you just breath and do your best to follow the target aircrafts.
After a few more tests you will then review a checklist for various engine/prop/fire emergencies. WRITE THE STEPS DOWN! Now you will follow these steps when prompted, ALL while flying and listening. Its amazing fun.
I did have a strange thing on my test - for each subsection it allows you to practice before the "tested" portion. When I did the emergency procedures test, it prompted me to practice once, then the test would begin. When I finished the practice session my test ended and it said I passed the malfunctions and procedures subtest. Not sure what happened - unless my practice session was the actual graded section? At any rate, it was pretty easy.

So that is a down and dirty on the "new" ASTB-E. There is a section you can complete before arriving - the Bio Inventory. Just be honest and thorough on this section. They can disqualify you for lying - even after you get to flight school. So don't lie. Don't undersell yourself either.

Overall my experience was great - it was quick, painless, and I had some fun in the Sim.

I passed with a OAR=51, QAR/PFAR/FOFAR of 6/7/5 and am fairly pleased. The "recruiter" at the Seattle office says to apply immediately with these scores. Apparently there is a wave of high selection rates coming - I know last year the boards were good and three of my buddies got selected their first time up.

I am applying for Pilot only this time and am thrilled to have a 6 AQR and 7 PFAR (thats Pilot Flight Aptitude Rating if you don't know).

What I will advise regarding studying. Study ALOT - but only because the tests are so short and there is literally a million things they could cover. Basic math up to not basic math. Naval history and airport information data. All of these topics are vast and studying one single book will not prepare you - in my HONEST opinion.
While I'm being honest, I did not study ANY of the gouge on this website other than the UAV Targeting flashcards. I looked at some gouge and tossed it. I studied my own way and think I did pretty decent for not knowing exactly what was on the test. The only thing I wish I would have studied more was Algebra/Trig and Chemistry. I never took Chem and I studied more complex math thinking I would remember Trig WRONG!
So, in hindsight, maybe I should have studied more date on this site - I would encourage you to at least look it ALL over and choose for yourself. Find someone and actually talk with them in person about the test - your recruiter can hook you up - or if you're in the fleet find someone who recently applied - there are plenty out there and very few excuses why you cannot find someone.
A huge portion of OCS/STA21/LDO/CWO etc. is to put the applicant in a position to network, apply themselves, and try their hardest to go above and beyond everything and in every way.

I know this section is for the ASTB, so I apologize to the moderators.
I would encourage anyone to go and take the ASTB sooner than later - it is a HUGE weight of your shoulders and will only open up time to focus on the other requirements. DO NOT go into the test to "try it out" with the intention of retaking it. There is a 91 day waiting period and your scores ONLY count from the most recent exam. Please just study a little and do your best. If you are mildly mechanical and have decent math abilities you will do FINE. The rest is mostly common sense (minus naval history) and I honestly think anyone can do well.

If you recently tested and scored poorly, don't get mad. Just focus on being more accurate and focused next time. Do not guess - this will definitely hurt your score. This is an adaptive test and you will do much better if you answer your completed questions correctly.

As a last note, I would encourage people to study with YouTube. Just search for ASTB-e videos or "how to" videos on each topic you are deficient at. This is a great tool and if you are a visual learner you will do better here than in the gouge.

Best of luck and feel free to PM me or post questions here.
I am finalizing my package this week and will post when I have more.

Jake

 

[KORhc]

Hi Everyone,
I retook my ASTB-e APEX 4 test yesterday, however I came back severely disappointed. First off i'll go into detail on each section

Math
Out of the 14 questions i answered, 8 of them were rate questions. Around 2 of them were probability questions such as "the probability of team A winning on any day is 0.40. the probability of both team A and B in winning on the same day is 0.15, what is the probability of team B winning on any way?". Simple algebra involving finding x. Finding the square root of a large number. However the only question that tripped me up was finding the circumference of a sphere given only the Surface Area Formula and Volume. I felt that the questions that I encountered on this section was moderately more difficult compared to the study guides and gauges I have studied. But overall I was confident that I got at least 90% of the questions correct.

Reading
Fairly straightforward and dry. Pay attention to detail no matter how boring and tedious each passages are.

Mechanical
Very simple physics, the gauges and study guides from Arco, Buffalo Marines and Barron will make you fly through this section.

UAV
Out of 30, i believe i missed 5 because of sheer nervousness. But i averaged 1.5 seconds on each one.

Aviation and Nautical Information
A lot of the questions were found on the main gauge you can find on this forum. I forgot the name of it, but knowing the basic knowledge on every aircraft parts will be expected, I got 3 questions on those. Also, REMEMBER every part of the ship and what it does, I came across 2 and missed those questions. Also remember the Airspace Classes, the gouge gives a brief overview of it, but you need to study the FAA handbook more in depth, some of the questions came from there as well. 4 of the questions were based on random history trivia where you can only hope and pray you'll know. Overall I was caught off guard on some of the questions but I was confident I got more questions correct than the first time taking this exam.

Stick and Throttle
The listening portion is fairly straightforward. When listening from your target ear what i do is focus my eyes on the right/left in order to prevent myself from getting confused from the opposite ear.
The stick is weird where it is both super sensitive/ will not budge. You either have to slam the thing in order for it too move, the sensitivity is very inconsistent, so you have to learn and adjust fast.

Emergency Procedures
I have no idea what happened. I did exactly what everyone had said and wrote the procedures down before proceeding with the exam. I am not sure whether or not the buttons were broken, but after doing everything and pressing the clutch as the last step, my screen still went red.

***important note, I was upset that during the entire exam, the APEX 4 server went down 6 times, which required me to close out of the test and log back into Apex again. I have no idea whether that impacted my scores or not, but many times during the stick and throttle portion, i had to do some of the tests 2-3 times over again since the test did not save my progress when the server error occured.

When my scores came out, I was shocked to see them unchanged from my first attempt. Compared from my first test, I know I answered more questions correctly and was more prepared.

My scores were 49 5/6/6

The study guides i used were the pilot's handbook of aeronautic knowledge, FAA handbook, Barrons practice tests, Military Flight Aptitude Tests from Arco, proprof flashcards for mechanical and aviation and nautical information, Marine Aviation Guige Suppliment, Buffalo Marines guide, https://manlypat.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/astb_study_guide.pdf and the main study guide on this forum (i forgot the name)

 

[flynavy830]

Hi Everyone,
I retook my ASTB-e APEX 4 test yesterday, however I came back severely disappointed. First off i'll go into detail on each section

Math
Out of the 14 questions i answered, 8 of them were rate questions. Around 2 of them were probability questions such as "the probability of team A winning on any day is 0.40. the probability of both team A and B in winning on the same day is 0.15, what is the probability of team B winning on any way?". Simple algebra involving finding x. Finding the square root of a large number. However the only question that tripped me up was finding the circumference of a sphere given only the Surface Area Formula and Volume. I felt that the questions that I encountered on this section was moderately more difficult compared to the study guides and gauges I have studied. But overall I was confident that I got at least 90% of the questions correct.

Reading
Fairly straightforward and dry. Pay attention to detail no matter how boring and tedious each passages are.

Mechanical
Very simple physics, the gauges and study guides from Arco, Buffalo Marines and Barron will make you fly through this section.

UAV
Out of 30, i believe i missed 5 because of sheer nervousness. But i averaged 1.5 seconds on each one.

Aviation and Nautical Information
A lot of the questions were found on the main gauge you can find on this forum. I forgot the name of it, but knowing the basic knowledge on every aircraft parts will be expected, I got 3 questions on those. Also, REMEMBER every part of the ship and what it does, I came across 2 and missed those questions. Also remember the Airspace Classes, the gouge gives a brief overview of it, but you need to study the FAA handbook more in depth, some of the questions came from there as well. 4 of the questions were based on random history trivia where you can only hope and pray you'll know. Overall I was caught off guard on some of the questions but I was confident I got more questions correct than the first time taking this exam.

Stick and Throttle
The listening portion is fairly straightforward. When listening from your target ear what i do is focus my eyes on the right/left in order to prevent myself from getting confused from the opposite ear.
The stick is weird where it is both super sensitive/ will not budge. You either have to slam the thing in order for it too move, the sensitivity is very inconsistent, so you have to learn and adjust fast.

Emergency Procedures
I have no idea what happened. I did exactly what everyone had said and wrote the procedures down before proceeding with the exam. I am not sure whether or not the buttons were broken, but after doing everything and pressing the clutch as the last step, my screen still went red.

***important note, I was upset that during the entire exam, the APEX 4 server went down 6 times, which required me to close out of the test and log back into Apex again. I have no idea whether that impacted my scores or not, but many times during the stick and throttle portion, i had to do some of the tests 2-3 times over again since the test did not save my progress when the server error occured.

When my scores came out, I was shocked to see them unchanged from my first attempt. Compared from my first test, I know I answered more questions correctly and was more prepared.

My scores were 49 5/6/6

The study guides i used were the pilot's handbook of aeronautic knowledge, FAA handbook, Barrons practice tests, Military Flight Aptitude Tests from Arco, proprof flashcards for mechanical and aviation and nautical information, Marine Aviation Guige Suppliment, Buffalo Marines guide, https://manlypat.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/astb_study_guide.pdf and the main study guide on this forum (i forgot the name)

When you say rate questions, were they all word questions? Like, aircraft flying away from each other, person A catching up to person B, etc?

 

[KORhc]

Yes, they were all word problems. Just like the questions on the link i posted on one of my study materials

 

[Joshua Owen]

First time posting in this section. Last Oct I took the test and scored 53/5/5/5. I was not selected in the April board so my recruiter suggested I retest and submit for the Oct board. Unfortunately the test was down when I traveled back home and couldn't retest and I missed the board. Took the test again on Friday and scored a 54/4/4/5. Extremely disappointed. My questions is, can I submit with sub 5 scores or am I now disqualified for SNA?

 

[exNavyOffRec]

First time posting in this section. Last Oct I took the test and scored 53/5/5/5. I was not selected in the April board so my recruiter suggested I retest and submit for the Oct board. Unfortunately the test was down when I traveled back home and couldn't retest and I missed the board. Took the test again on Friday and scored a 54/4/4/5. Extremely disappointed. My questions is, can I submit with sub 5 scores or am I now disqualified for SNA?

minimum to apply is 5 for PFAR

 

[Joshua Owen]

minimum to apply is 5 for PFAR

That's what I feared, but I wasn't certain. Thanks.