Good evening everyone. I completed the OAR portion of the ASTB this afternoon at the NSRC Las Vegas. Thank you all for your input and experiences as they helped me a lot with getting through the exam.
Quick background: I am a prior service AE2 with 4 years active. I will complete by BSEE from UNLV in the fall with a GPA of 2.9 (previously a nursing major that didn't go well, apparently I'm better at physical over life/biological). I've been working in the Air Force equivalent of AE since 2009 and am working on a package for AMDO. My OAR score was a 60.
Math: This section seemed like I knew what I was doing but the questions bounced around. I felt like I was going so slow, taking at least a minute, sometimes 2 on each problem and working them out fully. Probability and rates (mi/hr in given time) were the majority of my exam. I had no log problems (at least I didn't think I needed any logs). My advice on this part is don't worry about the time, make educated calculations. Obviously only doing 1 problem is not a good thing, but don't feel too rushed. I saw other people say the test stopped them before time ran out, whereas my time took the entire 30 minutes. There is a question floating around along the lines of "Mary's final grade is comprised of 20% from each of 3 exams, 10% from homework, and 30% from the final exam. If she scores a 76 and 84 on the first 2 exams, with a 72 for homework, her final grade is an 80, and her final exam is 10 points less than her exam 3 grade, what is her final exam grade?" This messed me up since I put the exam 3 grade instead of the final exam grade (yes a little bit of that put-a-likely-solution-for-confusion). But it wasn't that difficult to work out. Must have been happy I figured it out and missed reading the last part.
Reading: This was difficult since they were watching Men of Honor right outside the room (to which I'm playing out in my head while trying to read). The questions are boring and a lot of the time I thought all but one answer was correct. Sorry I can't offer more, I don't like reading very much.
Mechanical: This section is actually on 15 minutes. I didn't feel the questions were too hard. There were a few problems exactly like the gouge so it helped a lot. There were no formulas given so make sure you study up on the gouge.
I know this isn't much but I wanted to contribute, nonetheless. As questions come back to me I will update and edit. Best of luck to everyone and if you have any tips to ensure a competitive package for AMDO, please feel free to message me.
