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

[mb1685]

Well that's certainly surprising.

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

Math was my weakest part of the test, but I feel that manually reviewing (and straight up re-learning, when applicable) most of the Algebra, Probability, and Geometry on Khan Academy was the most beneficial thing I did. The books are good for serving as sets of practice questions, but for really diving into the concepts (especially if you haven't touched them in many years, like me), it's hard to beat Khan Academy.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

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.

Just from my experience on who I saw my NRD send to OCS as aviators, but if you exclude those that were redesignated at OCS, the ones that seemed to not make it through the pipeline more often than not were those with PPL's, we had 2 that were civilian IP's that I know of that didn't make it, one was mine, but that is just my experience.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

Well that's certainly surprising.

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

Barron's is a good start, I would recommend looking up more advanced topics on the web such as purplemath.com or Kahn Academy. Focus on basic log rules and probability especially. I would also recommend reading through this thread and the ASTB-E thread as well if you haven't already. I did this and found someone who talked of seeing binary on the test, so I learned how to count to 10 in binary, and sure enough there was a binary question on my test.

As with anything, there will always be things out of your control, but the better you can prepare and the more confident you can feel showing up will pay huge dividends to your score when all is said and done.

 

[Jwinterhouse]

I didn't have to take then entire ASTB but simply the OAR portion. I ended up getting a 71 on it and the only questions I suffered on were 1) which of these is a perfect number (it gave 4 options and it was so time consuming I just clicked on one at random) question 2) which of these fractions is the greatest (all the fractions were xxx/xxx 3 digit numbers over a 3 digit number and I didn't want to take the time to do long division). I'm happy with the results, I didn't study so I think I did damn good with what I had to work with.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

Just two tips for the above if anyone is studying, perfect numbers you just have to memorize, the first four are 6, 28, 496, and 8128.

For the fractions, you shouldn't need to do long division, just multiply the top and bottom of each fraction to get a common denominator, and then it should be pretty simple. So, if you have 5/0.1; 7/0.03; and 11/0.07; I would multiply the first by 210/210, the second by 700/700, and the third by 300/300. That will get you 1050/21; 4900/21; and 3300/21, so you would pick the second one.

Congrats with the great score, by the way!

 

[Armitage]

Barron's is a good start, I would recommend looking up more advanced topics on the web such as purplemath.com or Kahn Academy. Focus on basic log rules and probability especially. I would also recommend reading through this thread and the ASTB-E thread as well if you haven't already. I did this and found someone who talked of seeing binary on the test, so I learned how to count to 10 in binary, and sure enough there was a binary question on my test.

As with anything, there will always be things out of your control, but the better you can prepare and the more confident you can feel showing up will pay huge dividends to your score when all is said and done.

Thanks, I've been studying on khan academy the last couple days and I'll add purple math onto my schedule. Ya I had a binary problem which completely caught me off guard and I spent maybe 4-5 minutes trying to figure it out.

 

[hurricane26]

hey guys just a few more questions. i got the barrons book (huge help) but I'm also wondering if the other flight test for different branches would help me for the astb, are they similar questions? or should i just avoid them? lastly i was wondering if you guys got any great youtube videos or anything along that path i could watch to help me out with some naval and nautical knowledge segment. 16 days till ASTB round 2!

 

[Mo_Avi]

Hey so I've searched around on the threads I haven't really found an answer to this question. For the OAR portion, the trend I'm seeing is that people that did well did not time out (i.e they used all 30 mins). Vs those who haven't had such success typically time out (run out of time before the given time is up). My question, for those that have been successful; are you able to complete nearly all of the questions?
For the Reading Comp portion out of 27 questions are you able to complete roughly 20 or more like roughly 13 or 14?
Im having trouble answering all of the questions on time... Im using Manhattan Prep GRE Logic based reading comprehension to study.

 

[mb1685]

Hey so I've searched around on the threads I haven't really found an answer to this question. For the OAR portion, the trend I'm seeing is that people that did well did not time out (i.e they used all 30 mins). Vs those who haven't had such success typically time out (run out of time before the given time is up). My question, for those that have been successful; are you able to complete nearly all of the questions?
For the Reading Comp portion out of 27 questions are you able to complete roughly 20 or more like roughly 13 or 14?
Im having trouble answering all of the questions on time... Im using Manhattan Prep GRE Logic based reading comprehension to study.

I would say I did fairly well on the OAR but not amazing (60). I don't remember if I timed out or if it cut me off during the reading section (I wasn't really paying much attention to time since I was pretty confident in that section), but it definitely seemed like I did most, if not all, of the questions. It was definitely more than ~14. I know for sure that I timed out during math though and felt like I didn't get very far, but it didn't seem to hurt me much.

 

[Mo_Avi]

I would say I did fairly well on the OAR but not amazing (60). I don't remember if I timed out or if it cut me off during the reading section (I wasn't really paying much attention to time since I was pretty confident in that section), but it definitely seemed like I did most, if not all, of the questions. It was definitely more than ~14. I know for sure that I timed out during math though and felt like I didn't get very far, but it didn't seem to hurt me much.

Cool thank you...
Best of luck with your process.
Mo

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

I did not finish on Math and Mechanics (probably only had 2-3 questions left each time), and I got a 70. There's a definite balance between getting them right and working quickly but it all depends.

 

[Wolery David O]

So, on this site i see people telling others to retake the OAR if they get lower than a 50. But i have had friends, prior enlisted, just recently get picked up with scores of 35, 41, and a 45. THeir GPAs range from 2.9-3.2. I can assume the board takes in to account prior enlsited work load, duty stations and evals? I am curious about a good OAR score with a good OCS package.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

So, on this site i see people telling others to retake the OAR if they get lower than a 50. But i have had friends, prior enlisted, just recently get picked up with scores of 35, 41, and a 45. THeir GPAs range from 2.9-3.2. I can assume the board takes in to account prior enlsited work load, duty stations and evals? I am curious about a good OAR score with a good OCS package.

I wouldn't tell a person that has a 46 to retake to get a 50, 4 more points big freaking deal, what does the rest of the application look like, that is my question.

The board isn't going to look at a guy with an EE degree 3.5 GPA and 45 OAR and turn him down for the guy with 50 OAR but 3.0 in art history with all other things equal.

each designator has their key things, AMDO is aviation maint. experience, aviation is the ASTB, SWO is a combo of degree/GPA, etc.....

the board grades you against the civilians, unless you going for a specialized designator where enlisted experience has a direct correlation what you do, where you have been/what you have done/workload doesn't matter too much, evals are fine if you have a good GPA to go along with it, I had a prior active current reserve that took 3 times to get in, he had straight EP's but a GPA of 2.9 so he ended up getting a masters degree that boosted his GPA.

 

[Anthony Juliano]

If I were you, I wouldn't be hasty. I took the test last July and received a 43 and 6's and didn't get picked up for SNA. Looking back on that first test experience, I realized that I didn't really "study," I just kept taking practice tests and using the answer keys if I needed assistance... This time around I started from scratch and actually learned how to do everything and I bought numerous books to help me learn the fundamentals. I studied for about 6 months. I took the test last week and came away with a 58 and 7's. After all the preperation I was expecting to hit the 60's, but my recruiter seems very confident that I'm good to go... I would suggest taking your time, but be diligent and consistent. If you'd like to know the books I used, I'm happy to post them. Best of luck!

Can you please share with me the books you used? I am preparing a package for the October board and I still need to take the ASTB. Thank you.

 

[Josh Berto]

Can you please share with me the books you used? I am preparing a package for the October board and I still need to take the ASTB. Thank you.

With ya for that October board. Best of luck!

https://www.airwarriors.com/community/index.php?attachments/astb_personal_study_guide-doc.6263/

http://www.militaryaptitudetests.com/astb-e/


Hope these will get you started.