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

[blackcoffeeandadanish]

hello all! second time taking the ASTB in a week and im having just a terrible time grasping the spatial apperception section. The arrow and compass questions and such are easy enough, but i always seem to lose it with the yellow triangle type of questions. how do you determine which direction your facing? Is it the fat, wide end or the short pointed end?

short pointed end iirc

 

[Clark781]

I took it a few months ago, 8/7/8, OAR 65, so I don't remember a lot of the questions. Best tips I could give is to go through all of the google drive gouges posted here and print out the material. There are a lot of duplicates so just keep track, it'll be too much paper if you print out everything. Second thing is that when you're studying, circle the questions you get wrong. Then go over the material a second time and write down in a notebook, the steps or forumlas (mostly for physics but some for math) that you need to take to solve that particular problem. The barrons book will help you with the mechanical/physics section and the aviation knowledge. It's useless for math (way way too easy) and reading (passage format is not similar to the exams).

Math: Harder than I expected. The study guides that helped the most were "Petersons Practice Test 4: Arithmetic Reasoning" and the "OAR Math Practice Guide" by Carlos Miro. You can find it in Kyles ASTB study guide's math section. In general, understand logs, exponents and radicals and how to solve a complex equation involving potentially all 3 of them. Understand probability, series/sequences and some basic statistics.

Reading: Dry, boring. You may get repeated passages if you take the ASTB more than once. Read some Navy documents of this form (https://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-...ions/BUPERSInstructions/Documents/1001.40.pdf ). Read the question first, then look for the answer in the passage.

Mech: Easiest section, do the gouge material. Write down, memorize and understand where the forumlas come from that you will need to use during the exam. You'll do fine if you put in the work for this section before hand.

ANIT: Read the cram flashcards, read the Barrons books section on aviation and read a few chapters of the FAA handbook (no need to know the more complicated stuff in the book). Can be pretty random, I read the entire FAA book and thought I was doing horrible on this section.

NATFI: Just be honest here, you can answer the questions according to the bad/good personality traits for pilots listed in the FAA handbook but I suggest not to. It'll be too hard to keep track (they seem to repeat questions) and you'll waste time/brain power thinking about which traits they're looking for. I almost felt like it wouldn't really effect the score if I had picked entirely different answers than the ones I did.

UAV: Watch the Youtube compass trick video, I'm sure you've all seen it posted here before. Then practice the UAV flashcards a few times. Do it quickly, as quick as you possibly can without error, even a few extra seconds can hurt your score. It may not feel like a big difference between 10 seconds and 4 seconds, but this portion seems to care about the time a lot.

PBM: Hardest section. For the listening, zero in on the ear you're told to (I titlted my head towards the right if it was the right ear lol). This will be redundant but forget about the ear you're supposed to ignore. I played War Thunder in prep for the rest. I bought a thrustmaster controller. During the exam, when you push forward on the throttle (the left part of the controller) the crosshair moves up, and when you pull the throttle towards you the crosshair moves down. For the joystick (the right part of the controller), pushing the joystick forward moves the crosshair down and pulling the joystick towards you moves the crosshair up. Right down the emergency procedures controls before that section starts so that you don't forgot them. Just try to do your best here and don't panic or give up if you think you're doing bad (note: everyone probably thinks they're doing bad on this section).

Good luck!

Congrats on the great score. I am just starting the proceeds of talking with an OR and getting all my paperwork in order. As I was reading your post I noticed you mentioned “google drive gouges” for studying. How do I find these documents?

Thank you

 

[Waveoff]

Congrats on the great score. I am just starting the proceeds of talking with an OR and getting all my paperwork in order. As I was reading your post I noticed you mentioned “google drive gouges” for studying. How do I find these documents?

Thank you

If you scroll back through this forum you’ll see ones posted and linked to by other users, including myself.

 

[Clark781]

If you scroll back through this forum you’ll see ones posted and linked to by other users, including myself.

Ahhhh ok. I was thinking I might be overlooking a section with all the attachments listed. I appreciate the quick response too

 

[Jordheim]

Is anyone able to clarify or dispel a rumor given to me by my math tutor for the ASTB. He's stating that scores are affected by the time of the month; meaning that if I take the test at the first of a month, my score will be higher than if i took the test at the end of the month. Is this rumor mail and he's full of shit, or is there some validity to this statement? Being that its Feb 5; should I wait til march to take the OAR? I'm close to aging out and that is my main concern.

 

[Cbienaim]

Congrats on the great score. I am just starting the proceeds of talking with an OR and getting all my paperwork in order. As I was reading your post I noticed you mentioned “google drive gouges” for studying. How do I find these documents?

Thank you

Here if you don’t have these google drive shared docs look through these, in each section there is a gouge on what others have encountered and also

OAR Study Materials (July 2018) - Google Drive

drive.google.com

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AvPi5oH_h_13TGajDvflDWkftwXO8LS6hella practice material

 

[TF7325]

Is anyone able to clarify or dispel a rumor given to me by my math tutor for the ASTB. He's stating that scores are affected by the time of the month; meaning that if I take the test at the first of a month, my score will be higher than if i took the test at the end of the month. Is this rumor mail and he's full of shit, or is there some validity to this statement? Being that its Feb 5; should I wait til march to take the OAR? I'm close to aging out and that is my main concern.

I call bullshit. Just study as much as you can, and take it when you’re ready.

 

[Jordheim]

I call bullshit. Just study as much as you can, and take it when you’re ready.

I called BS too. I'm taking my test Feb 18th. I hope to get at least a 40. anything beyond that is a bonus for me. I got a 35 on my first attempt had had not studied any of the ASTB study guides previously. I will let everyone know what the test was like after I take it. I'm feeling pretty confident about it.

 

[Crazy Legs]

I called BS too. I'm taking my test Feb 18th. I hope to get at least a 40. anything beyond that is a bonus for me. I got a 35 on my first attempt had had not studied any of the ASTB study guides previously. I will let everyone know what the test was like after I take it. I'm feeling pretty confident about it.

Goodluck! What was your AQR/POFAR/FOFAR like without even looking at any material?

 

[Jordheim]

AQR/POFAR/FOFAR

I actually do not know. I am only taking the OAR section. I have no dreams of being a pilot or flight officer. Mainly due to my age. I'm going to be the grandpa in OCS.

 

[dxfan06]

Hey all! just finished my second round of the ASTB and got a 5/7/5. now technically this is enough to qualify for a pilot slot, but i wanna retest. What test sections should i focus on to boos my PFAR scores? Also, my test was kicking me out the entire time and i think that might have had something to do with it? The Questions i thought were very easy and it kicked me to the next section way under the 30 Q limit. what are your collective thoughts? I studied pretty hard so im just a little confused about why i scored only a 5 for AQR and just trying to figure if it was a glitchy test.

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

Hey all! just finished my second round of the ASTB and got a 5/7/5. now technically this is enough to qualify for a pilot slot, but i wanna retest. What test sections should i focus on to boos my PFAR scores? Also, my test was kicking me out the entire time and i think that might have had something to do with it? The Questions i thought were very easy and it kicked me to the next section way under the 30 Q limit. what are your collective thoughts? I studied pretty hard so im just a little confused about why i scored only a 5 for AQR and just trying to figure if it was a glitchy test.

Why not apply with those scores and not risk getting a lower score?

 

[dxfan06]

Why not apply with those scores and not risk getting a lower score?

True, im still putting those scores up and seeing what happens with them, i just hope they're good enough for a selection. have to wait and see i suppose!

 

[Deleted member 67926]

Do you have to manually preset the knobs on the EST test? Are the emergencies random?

 

[Cbienaim]

Just took the ASTB-E and scored a 54! I’m super excited couldn’t have done this without this community! Later today I will give my whole break down of the test as it’s still fresh. If you are taking it soon please feel free to message me! NEXT STOP SWO BOARDS!