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

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exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Aaron Starks said:
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.
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That GPA will really hurt you, the degree is good, if you are eligible to apply for a few other designators I would apply for those as well such as SWO since AMDO is extremely competitive.
 
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Aaron Starks

New Member
NavyOffRec said:
That GPA will really hurt you, the degree is good, if you are eligible to apply for a few other designators I would apply for those as well such as SWO since AMDO is extremely competitive.
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I am also considering SWO. GPA still prevents me from doing EDO but I figure I can start out and hopefully work towards an MSEE and then apply down the road. Discouraging when the only thing people care about is a number on a transcript when they don't consider the whole package. I work 40+ hrs a week with 2 kids and average 13 credits a semester. But let's let the GPA be a deciding factor. (No disrespect intended, just venting some frustration.)
 
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exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Aaron Starks said:
I am also considering SWO. GPA still prevents me from doing EDO but I figure I can start out and hopefully work towards an MSEE and then apply down the road. Discouraging when the only thing people care about is a number on a transcript when they don't consider the whole package. I work 40+ hrs a week with 2 kids and average 13 credits a semester. But let's let the GPA be a deciding factor. (No disrespect intended, just venting some frustration.)
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I understand what you are saying, but what a board member told me before is that they look at a person who has a lot going on and sees a lower GPA as a time management issue, that a person should be able to evaluate and reduce the number of classes, she said they see many who have other things going on in life that graduate with very good GPA's, one of my sailors when I was at an IMF graduated with a Chemistry degree and had about a 3.7 GPA

There have been many that have told people finish the degree as fast as you can because it is the degree is what matters, when in fact it is better to take an extra year and get a better GPA.

I do think all your factors will be taken into account, but SWO is more likely to look at all those as they have many more billets than AMDO that has just a few per year
 
Armitage

Armitage

Member
Hey guys new here, I'm retaking the ASTB pretty soon and I'm looking for some studying advice.
I'm mostly looking to improve my PFAR score and plan on doing so by taking a few flight lessons, reading the FAA manual one of you recently posted, and hitting those UAV flashcards until I can do it in about a second. It's also a bit of a surprise to me you can practice for that section on the test as much as you want. (I wish I had known that the first time around.) I would definitely appreciate any more resources anyone would like to add to this.

My OAR was solid (60) but I figured since I'm retaking the test I should try to get that up too; I think the math portion of the test was the hardest for me. I have the Barrons book and the Accepted book and both are pretty good from what I read here, but I'd like to add to more material. I keep hearing the peterson's book mentioned so I'm thinking of ordering that, but I also hear that the ARCO GRE math review is very good for the ASTB. Has anyone on here used the ARCO book?
 
Hopeful Hoya

Hopeful Hoya

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Taking flight lessons would be a huge waste of time and money. PFAR is heavily weighted on Math, Aviation History, and UAV. Do well on those parts, as well as the emergency procedures, and you will be fine.
 
Armitage

Armitage

Member
Hopeful Hoya said:
Taking flight lessons would be a huge waste of time and money. PFAR is heavily weighted on Math, Aviation History, and UAV. Do well on those parts, as well as the emergency procedures, and you will be fine.
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I'd have to disagree about the flight lessons, although they might not help with the ASTB that much but they will help my performance in flight school.

How to improve on the PFAR seems fairly straightforward but I would appreciate some insight in the math area. Would you recommend the ARCO GRE book I mentioned in my original post?
 
mb1685

mb1685

Well-Known Member
Armitage said:
I'd have to disagree about the flight lessons, although they might not help with the ASTB that much but they will help my performance in flight school.

How to improve on the PFAR seems fairly straightforward but I would appreciate some insight in the math area. Would you recommend the ARCO GRE book I mentioned in my original post?
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The consensus seems to be in disagreement with you there as well. Many, many winged aviators on this forum have stated that having a PPL (or less) may help on only an extremely rudimentary level; to such a point that it's insignificant. I've heard the same thing from a lot of my Air Force friends who went through UPT. If you've got the money for it and want to go for it then more power to you, but I've never heard anyone indicate that it will give any real leg up during flight school.
 
Armitage

Armitage

Member
mb1685 said:
The consensus seems to be in disagreement with you there as well. Many, many winged aviators on this forum have stated that having a PPL (or less) may help on only an extremely rudimentary level; to such a point that it's insignificant. I've heard the same thing from a lot of my Air Force friends who went through UPT. If you've got the money for it and want to go for it then more power to you, but I've never heard anyone indicate that it will give any real leg up during flight school.
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Well that's certainly surprising.

Regardless, I have the Barron's book to study for math; do you have any advice for supplementing that?
 
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