I'm an idiot lol, that's been bugging me since I took the test, I should have known that. Thank you!
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1,001 questions about the ASTB (post your scores & ask your questions here!)
- Thread starter edato
- Start date
calebkelly4
Member
First post here - just took the ASTB today.
Thanks to everyone who has posted study materials/advice. I found Patrick's study guide very useful.
I'm not the greatest at math and know nothing about planes but found the Trivium AFOQT book which helped a lot with those two areas.
I'd like to submit for SWO but I took the complete test on the recommendation of my recruiter.
Scored 59 6/6/7
Thanks to everyone who has posted study materials/advice. I found Patrick's study guide very useful.
I'm not the greatest at math and know nothing about planes but found the Trivium AFOQT book which helped a lot with those two areas.
I'd like to submit for SWO but I took the complete test on the recommendation of my recruiter.
Scored 59 6/6/7
gunnerkring
Member
With only a week of studying, I took the ASTB on Tuesday and scored a 5/7/6 44
I have a month before I retake it, and I’ve got to get the OAR score up. I struggled a lot on the reading comprehension, what is a good strategy for preparing for this section?
I have a month before I retake it, and I’ve got to get the OAR score up. I struggled a lot on the reading comprehension, what is a good strategy for preparing for this section?
Read out loud and slowly. Don't rush through and make sure you read every question before you choose your answer. Focus on key words such as "will" or "must" which insinuates the passage is saying something is definite as opposed to words like "might" or "should" which insinuates the passage is saying something as a suggestion or possibility
sgroff
Member
Just took it yesterday with a score of 67 9/9/8
Some of my thoughts:
Math: To study for this I took all the practice tests I could like Barrons and the ones you can find here. I also used this website ixl.com. Its a K-12 practice problem website that spits out random math problems, and it covers all kinds of subjects. It cost like 15 bucks a month but it really helped. I just did most of the Algebra I and Geometry problems.
After the first two questions which I'm pretty sure I got right, the difficulty ramped up a lot. Most of the questions I got were probability, logarithms, and the problems where you have a group of people who can accomplish a job in a set amount of hours.
One I remember specifically went like: 3 guys can do a job in 12 hours. If those same guys work for 4 hours, and then a new guy joins every hour after that how fast can they finish the job. Answers were 8hrs, 7hrs 20 min, 7 hrs, and 6hrs 20min.
Or something like that, I just guessed on it. Just take your time on the test because you have 40 minutes and I'm sure accuracy is more important than speed.
I really wish I studied probability and those worker questions more
Reading: The questions I got were usually pretty hard and tedious to read. I got a few easy ones though because I was getting some wrong. I didn't get any of the vocabulary questions that the Barron tests had. Not much else to say, easily my least favorite part of the test.
Mechanical: I have a mechanical engineering degree so this wasn't too bad for me. Lots of pulley questions, Bernoulli questions and string tension. All I did to prepare was go over the Barron's section and read the gouges. One question I remember gave me a picture that looked like the symbol for an inductor or coil and the answer choices were capacitor choke, resistor choke or some other kind of choke. I just picked the third option because it didn't look like a resistor or capacitor.
Personality Test: I got 100 sets of 2 question choices, most of which will both make you look bad. I just went with the opposite personality of someone who is prone to accidents from Chapter 2 of the FAA handbook.
Five traits were discovered in pilots prone to having accidents. These pilots:
• Have disdain toward rules
• Have very high correlation between accidents on their flying records and safety violations on their driving records
• Frequently fall into the “thrill and adventure seeking” personality category
• Are impulsive rather than methodical and disciplined, both in their information gathering and in the speed and selection of actions to be taken
• Have a disregard for or tend to under utilize outside sources of information, including copilots, flight attendants, flight service personnel, flight instructors, and ATC
Aviation Knowledge: This one was easier than I was expecting. Didn't get really any questions about airport operations or airspaces like I expected. Some that I remember were that the P51 Mustang escorted bombers, and the Me 262 (not the F86 Sabre) was the worlds first jet fighter that flew combat operations. I read the entire FAA hanbook and there were some really good chapters but a lot goes into more detail than you might need. I attached a table of contents that someone else highlighted of the important stuff.
Performance Based Maneuvers: I felt like a did really bad on the UAV portion. Most of the time my time to pick was around 3-5 seconds and I think I picked the wrong parking lot like 5 or 6 times. If you're doing the UAV flash cards, the ones were you see your cardinal direction on the map are the ones that are on the test.
For the joystick part, I prepared by buying a flightstick and playing fps games with the Y-axis inverted on my computer. I used a program called JoytoKey to convert the joystick movement to mouse movement, that way I could play most games with it. Mostly I played Killing Floor 2 (which is a really fun game) and went for headshots. On the emergency scenario section, I got the three emergencies and did them all pretty quickly. There was a knob on the top and bottom of the throttle that you manipulated with your thumb and forefinger and then a button you push with your thumb. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to tell if the knob was 100% or 0% but there is an indicator on the screen showing you their status. If you're curious, the HOTAS setup my recruiter had was the Logitech x52.
Final thoughts: All in all, I think I did about 3-4 weeks of actual studying and I'm pretty happy with my score. I felt like was doing pretty badly the whole time, especially on the PBM part so I was pretty surprised at the end.
Some of my thoughts:
Math: To study for this I took all the practice tests I could like Barrons and the ones you can find here. I also used this website ixl.com. Its a K-12 practice problem website that spits out random math problems, and it covers all kinds of subjects. It cost like 15 bucks a month but it really helped. I just did most of the Algebra I and Geometry problems.
After the first two questions which I'm pretty sure I got right, the difficulty ramped up a lot. Most of the questions I got were probability, logarithms, and the problems where you have a group of people who can accomplish a job in a set amount of hours.
One I remember specifically went like: 3 guys can do a job in 12 hours. If those same guys work for 4 hours, and then a new guy joins every hour after that how fast can they finish the job. Answers were 8hrs, 7hrs 20 min, 7 hrs, and 6hrs 20min.
Or something like that, I just guessed on it. Just take your time on the test because you have 40 minutes and I'm sure accuracy is more important than speed.
I really wish I studied probability and those worker questions more
Reading: The questions I got were usually pretty hard and tedious to read. I got a few easy ones though because I was getting some wrong. I didn't get any of the vocabulary questions that the Barron tests had. Not much else to say, easily my least favorite part of the test.
Mechanical: I have a mechanical engineering degree so this wasn't too bad for me. Lots of pulley questions, Bernoulli questions and string tension. All I did to prepare was go over the Barron's section and read the gouges. One question I remember gave me a picture that looked like the symbol for an inductor or coil and the answer choices were capacitor choke, resistor choke or some other kind of choke. I just picked the third option because it didn't look like a resistor or capacitor.
Personality Test: I got 100 sets of 2 question choices, most of which will both make you look bad. I just went with the opposite personality of someone who is prone to accidents from Chapter 2 of the FAA handbook.
Five traits were discovered in pilots prone to having accidents. These pilots:
• Have disdain toward rules
• Have very high correlation between accidents on their flying records and safety violations on their driving records
• Frequently fall into the “thrill and adventure seeking” personality category
• Are impulsive rather than methodical and disciplined, both in their information gathering and in the speed and selection of actions to be taken
• Have a disregard for or tend to under utilize outside sources of information, including copilots, flight attendants, flight service personnel, flight instructors, and ATC
Aviation Knowledge: This one was easier than I was expecting. Didn't get really any questions about airport operations or airspaces like I expected. Some that I remember were that the P51 Mustang escorted bombers, and the Me 262 (not the F86 Sabre) was the worlds first jet fighter that flew combat operations. I read the entire FAA hanbook and there were some really good chapters but a lot goes into more detail than you might need. I attached a table of contents that someone else highlighted of the important stuff.
Performance Based Maneuvers: I felt like a did really bad on the UAV portion. Most of the time my time to pick was around 3-5 seconds and I think I picked the wrong parking lot like 5 or 6 times. If you're doing the UAV flash cards, the ones were you see your cardinal direction on the map are the ones that are on the test.
For the joystick part, I prepared by buying a flightstick and playing fps games with the Y-axis inverted on my computer. I used a program called JoytoKey to convert the joystick movement to mouse movement, that way I could play most games with it. Mostly I played Killing Floor 2 (which is a really fun game) and went for headshots. On the emergency scenario section, I got the three emergencies and did them all pretty quickly. There was a knob on the top and bottom of the throttle that you manipulated with your thumb and forefinger and then a button you push with your thumb. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to tell if the knob was 100% or 0% but there is an indicator on the screen showing you their status. If you're curious, the HOTAS setup my recruiter had was the Logitech x52.
Final thoughts: All in all, I think I did about 3-4 weeks of actual studying and I'm pretty happy with my score. I felt like was doing pretty badly the whole time, especially on the PBM part so I was pretty surprised at the end.
Last edited:
ApacheIndian
New Member
I took the ASTB today to qualify for SNA. My scores were 44 4/4/4. Obviously, this is not a passing score but I've been asked to re-take within a month (July end).
Math (MST): This is the section heavily weighted towards the computation of the AQR score which is crucial for SNA/SNFO. I saw a lot of probability problems as well as problems dealing with fractions. For example, if a family gives away 1/8 of their produce how much of their 2 2/3 produce remains? Express in vulgar fraction.
Ex2: 3 green balls, 3 blue balls and 5 white balls. Sally takes one blue ball, what is the probability of Timmy taking a white ball?
The questions were not complicated but were on a level with those found on the SAT.
Reading (RCT): This section caught me off guard a little bit since the passages were very much based on Naval working policies so the language contained therein was quite technical. The prep books did not have such passages and so I was not prepared for this and was second-guessing my answers quite a bit. Again, SAT reading comes close to the reading section here.
Mechanical (MST): Here, I was prepared for a lot of pulleys and gears but instead found general science questions posed as mechanical questions. Brushing up on basic mechanical physics is beneficial. Fulcrums are a big feature, or at least I got many of those questions. Know your levers.
ANIT: Was largely okay. Some questions were very technical especially for the aviation bit so its necessary to have a basic working knowledge of aerodynamics as well as Naval aviation trivia.
PBM (UAV/Tracking): For the UAV portion it is vitally important to be able to re-orient one's mind for every question. Look at the tracker map and then at the presented view and see how the directions need to be adjusted. The responses are timed so the lower the better.
The tracking exercise with the stick was really hard as they had inverted the Y axis and the throttle was setup such that it simulated the power buildup in a real turbine engine. The power takes time to buildup and so you need to think ahead. The more time you spend locked on to the target, the faster it moves along the Y axis. The second screen was quite tough due to the inverted Y axis and the stick having a lag. Again simulating real targeting conditions so one has to think ahead here as well.
In conclusion: Apart from the mechanical knowledge and the naval and aviation related stuff, most of the prep can be done from SAT books themselves so I'll be focused on those. Brushing up on basic physics will help out with mechanical a whole lot. I'm hoping for a vastly improved score next month.
Current prep books:
Solomons 6e
Petersons
Learning Express 5e
Barrons Military Flight Tests
Math (MST): This is the section heavily weighted towards the computation of the AQR score which is crucial for SNA/SNFO. I saw a lot of probability problems as well as problems dealing with fractions. For example, if a family gives away 1/8 of their produce how much of their 2 2/3 produce remains? Express in vulgar fraction.
Ex2: 3 green balls, 3 blue balls and 5 white balls. Sally takes one blue ball, what is the probability of Timmy taking a white ball?
The questions were not complicated but were on a level with those found on the SAT.
Reading (RCT): This section caught me off guard a little bit since the passages were very much based on Naval working policies so the language contained therein was quite technical. The prep books did not have such passages and so I was not prepared for this and was second-guessing my answers quite a bit. Again, SAT reading comes close to the reading section here.
Mechanical (MST): Here, I was prepared for a lot of pulleys and gears but instead found general science questions posed as mechanical questions. Brushing up on basic mechanical physics is beneficial. Fulcrums are a big feature, or at least I got many of those questions. Know your levers.
ANIT: Was largely okay. Some questions were very technical especially for the aviation bit so its necessary to have a basic working knowledge of aerodynamics as well as Naval aviation trivia.
PBM (UAV/Tracking): For the UAV portion it is vitally important to be able to re-orient one's mind for every question. Look at the tracker map and then at the presented view and see how the directions need to be adjusted. The responses are timed so the lower the better.
The tracking exercise with the stick was really hard as they had inverted the Y axis and the throttle was setup such that it simulated the power buildup in a real turbine engine. The power takes time to buildup and so you need to think ahead. The more time you spend locked on to the target, the faster it moves along the Y axis. The second screen was quite tough due to the inverted Y axis and the stick having a lag. Again simulating real targeting conditions so one has to think ahead here as well.
In conclusion: Apart from the mechanical knowledge and the naval and aviation related stuff, most of the prep can be done from SAT books themselves so I'll be focused on those. Brushing up on basic physics will help out with mechanical a whole lot. I'm hoping for a vastly improved score next month.
Current prep books:
Solomons 6e
Petersons
Learning Express 5e
Barrons Military Flight Tests
ajpurvis
Jarhead gone squid
Do you remember what the answers to these are? I'm coming up with the KC-135, the wildcat, induced drag, and engaging the ailerons.
ajpurvis
Jarhead gone squid
I've been searching the web and the closest thing I can find talks about the KC-135. The 135 looks like it was originally a tanker though, so that's confusing.
The P-51 was the escort. See source.
Long-Range Fighter Escort - Warfare History Network
The development of long-range escort fighters was one contributor to the progress of the Allied bombing campaign against Nazi Germany.
warfarehistorynetwork.com
sgroff
Member
The aircraft that was converted to a tanker was the A-6 I'm pretty sure and the bomber escort was the P51 mustang. Jalen is right about the other two I think
ajpurvis
Jarhead gone squid
I haven't come by any flashcards with this info on them... What did you use to study for the ANIT?
sgroff
Member
That bit of trivia about the A6 tanker conversion I read somewhere on this forum and I think I read about the P51 mustang in one of the study guide gouges.
I read one or two books I found in the bargain section at Barnes and Noble about WW2 aviation, one of them was called Skies of WW2 by Jason Biggs. I liked it cause it had plenty of pictures. I also used some of the gouges found in these google drive links, its pretty disorganized so you have to look around.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qHP7UgdlcG_8MWka5XnTuNGl4Q-hqL3b
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zCfQ7iTsFBRKJzH8shh2gs7SK15cv2sM
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yF6a44EmkonbPCXAlR-W2w-GGjcSu_uV
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s0TFbrfix-01JR_nBtxMF2pfE7mo3Apm
gabriellehale
Well-Known Member
https://www.aptitude-test.com/membership/
this website helps a lot its 14 bucks one time payment for 6 month access it has math, mechanical and reading, you can set up your tests to what areas you’d like to study.
this website helps a lot its 14 bucks one time payment for 6 month access it has math, mechanical and reading, you can set up your tests to what areas you’d like to study.
The only thing about the a-6 is I don't remember it being an answer choice. It may have been but I don't remember
sgroff
Member
Now that I'm looking back through my study material, it's a little confusing. One gouge says the A-6 intruder was converted to the KA-6D during the Gulf War. And the other says the S-3 Viking was convereted to the KS-3 during Iraqi Freedom. So the idea I think is that the KS-3 replaced the KA-6D.
BUT Wikipedia is saying that the KS-3 conversion never actually happened and the program was cancelled. However I the S-3B still performed tanker duties during the gulf war. And on top of that, looks like the A-7 Corsair II also did some tanker duty during Desert Storm/Shield. I doubt they would put all of those answers on the same question, so I would pick one of those if you see any of those answers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tanker_aircraft