Just took the ASTB today for the first time and scored 51 6/6/6 which I thought was absolute trash and was disappointed but my recruiter was ecstatic over it. He was seriously stoked and didn’t even mention possibly retesting so I don't plan on taking it again. A lot of people have given great advice on this whole forum so instead of regurgitating that I'll just add some information from my own perspective that I haven't seen anyone else say. I also remember a lot of the questions so I'll give every question I can remember.
MATH
This felt like my worst area and I lowkey started panicking several times. I was taking a long time on each question, and time ran out before I had completed probably around 10 questions. I decided taking a long time but getting the right answer was better than quickly picking the best guess and having it be wrong, and it worked out for me in the end so. I had mostly arithmetic reasoning questions (word problems) and obviously no log or matrix questions. I was surprised I didn't get any radical or square root/cube root questions. Glad I spent hours studying those lol. Don't even waste your time with the practice problems in the Barron's book. They're 10 times easier than the questions on the ASTB.
1. Sally can paint a house in 4 hours and John can paint it in 6, how long does it take them to paint it together (easy). USE
GRAMMAR HERO on YouTube for all these word problems...I used him when studying for the ASVAB and got a 97 (which I know is a lot easier than the ASTB but you see my point). He is a great place to start.
2. John scored 64 on his first test and 74 on his second. His third test was 10 points more than his fourth test, and his fourth test was the average of the first three tests. What was his average of all five tests? Again, use GRAMMAR HERO on YouTube, as well as the
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY TUTOR for more word problems.
3. Bob went fishing and 7 of every 8 casts did not get any bites. 1/3 of the casts that did bite reeled in a fish. How many times does he need to cast his pole to get a minimum of 8 fish?
4. A ranch has horses and ponies. 9-tenths of all the ponies have horseshoes. Half of the shoed-ponies are Icelandic ponies. How many ponies are on the ranch? A. 17 B. 23 C. 18 D. 20 At first I was like "w h a t t h e f a c k" because how am I supposed to know how many ponies are on the damn ranch? Then I realized that if half of the shoed ponies are Icelandic, that means that there must be an even number of shoed-ponies. So all you have to do is multiply each answer by 9/10 and see which one spits out a whole and even number. (20)
5. Simply (2(x+2)^2)^2 + 6x (x-4)^2 all divided by 4. This may not be the exact numbers but it's similar to what I had.
6. I had the weirdest binary question which sucked because I read on here that some people got the question "what is
some single-digit number in binary" so I learned 0-12 in binary, but nOoOoo this test wanted to ask me a binary question on steroids. It was something like:
"binary is base-2 because 1 is 0 and 1 together, and 0 = 0, and 2 = 0 and 1 and 1 (some sort of sh!t like that idk) so in base-4 binary, how is 7+8 expressed?" and the answers weren't even 1001 0011 answers, the options were like 33, 38, 20 and 23. So… just study what base-2 and base-4 binary is I guess???
7. Sarah’s final grade is made up of 20% from 3 tests, 10% from homework, and 30% from the final exam. She scored 72 and 84 on the first two tests, her third test was 10 points less than what she scored on the final exam. Her class grade was an 80. What was her final exam score? This might not be
exactly the right numbers but you get the idea. Challenging grade questions involving percentages and weighted averages blah blah blah.
I surprisingly didn’t get any questions about probability. However, I recommend Khan Academy’s video for DICE PROBABILITY. He offers a really easy trick that I didn’t see anyone else do on YouTube. For anything else, I prefer The Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube (for math
and mechanical) over Khan Academy.
Again I only answered like 10 questions and still scored above average so don't stress
too much if you feel like you're doing bad or taking a long time.
MECHANICAL
Nothing surprising here, just read what other people have wrote. I spent only 1 day studying for this section and it worked out for me. And I have never taken any physics in high school or college. I recommend
THE ORGANIC CHEMISTRY TUTOR on YouTube over Khan Academy…A lot of people like Khan Academy but he oversimplified things in my opinion, so it was like pulling teeth listening to him teach. However, I highly recommend his video for DICE PROBABILITY. He offers a really easy, simple trick that other videos don’t teach. IT DOES NOT GIVE YOU SIMPLE EQUATIONS FOR ELECTRICITY PROBLEMS. I relied too much on everyone saying all the formula’s you’ll need are on the sidebar, I didn’t see 1 formula the whole test. And I had to calculate voltage in an electricity question and fumbled around trying to remember the equation that I had just learned the day before. (I=V/R, R=V/I, V=IR).
ANIT
I feel like I knew maybe half of these questions and the other half might as well have been Greek. And I studied for this section the most. Probably around 50 or more hours. I had no experience with aviation prior to this whatsoever! Never even heard the words fuselage or nautical in my life. So if you’re like me, be encouraged! You can do it!
Here are all the questions I remember with whatever answers I remember (NOT necessarily the right answer, just the options for answers that I remember).
1. At what temperature does a carburetor experience icing?
2. What does CVBG stand for (A. light-carrier B. heavy carrier, something like that).
3. To navigate by VOR you need to… one answer was rotate the OBS(?) to desired heading? I can’t remember what I answered.
4. know what a sidewinder is ?
5. how do you know if an aircraft is considered high-powered? A. It’s horse power is over 200 B. It weighs more than xxx C. It has so-and-so engine idk
6. Vx means….
7. Something about the USAF categorizing things as either STOL CVOL SCTOVL TOVL (something like that)
8. what is the thing called that’s attached to the wings and/or fuselage that supports the engines and something else. Options were like cowl, strut, pivot, pylon and port
9. how have carriers evolved to support high-powered(?)/heavier(?) aircraft like the 30-ton F-14? The answers said something about angled decks, longer runways, more catapults, less catapults, or making the f-14 lighter LOL.
10. which fighter aircraft was first to escort bombers across enemy lines (I was ecstatic seeing this cuz I remember reading it from other people on the forum). I said P-51 mustang so hopefully that was right otherwise that’d be embarrassing lol.
11. something about what is the cabin(?) on the bridge of the deck called on ships(??) one of the options was crows nest…
12. what is a vertical protruding thing called on a ship lol answer: bulkhead
13. questions about ailerons, elevators, and what they do. Which everyone here has said to study already. I weirdly didn’t get any questions about airport lighting, but I’ve heard those are common to a lot people.
14. There was lots of abbreviations like UGM RIM AIM BGM in all the questions so learn as much of that crap as you can I guess.
Before anyone accuses me of any funny-business, I just have a very good memory when it comes to stuff like this. I also just finished testing about an hour ago and came straight here to write down everything I remember. I also went into the test with the specific intention to try and remember as many questions and answers as I could while I was taking it so I could come back here and hopefully help out some other people.
UAV (compass thing)
Use the compass trick on Youtube everyone recommends. I’ve seen some other people write out all the different compass/heading variations on a piece of paper…don’t waste your time with that, it will take you too long to look down at that thing and find the right answer. All you need to do is tear off a square piece of paper, draw your compass and then STICK YOUR PENCIL THROUGH THE MIDDLE. I’ve only seen 1 other guy say to do this. This way, you can hold it in your left hand and quickly twirl it to the right position, and then have your right hand on the mouse. I was answering them around 1.5 seconds, sometimes slightly faster or slower. ALSO. USE A MOUSE. My recruiter had me on a laptop with a trackpad instead of a mouse, and I insisted that I would not continue the test unless he got a mouse and plugged it into the laptop for this part lol. He didn’t think it would make a difference, but don’t let anyone tell you how to take YOUR test. It’s your score, not his. Do what you need to do to pass. And using a mouse will make you significantly faster than using a trackpad. Also, after the practice problems, you can go back and practice them again and again. I wish I had done that because I missed 2 during the actual test due to trying to be fast, and I might not have if I had done the practice problems a few more times. Oh well, I still passed so who cares!
PERSONALITY TEST
Lots of people say different things about this, and everyone stresses over it too much in my opinion. There’s no reason to feel bad about yourself after it. All they’re trying to do is make sure you’re not a psychopath, narcissist, or degenerate. The strategy I used was to determine what each question was an example of, and pick the evil that wasn’t illegal or dishonorable. For instance, if the two options were 1) I don’t obey certain rules at work if I think they’re unnecessary. And 2) I lose my temper in angry outbursts during stressful situations. Well the first one is dishonorable, the second isn’t illegal or dishonorable, it’s just a personality flaw. So I picked the second one. Sometimes, the options will be the SAME THING but stated slightly differently….listen to which one sounds more narcissistic and avoid that one. 1) I am confident in my ability to adapt to changes 2) I usually can come up with a new plan when there are unforeseen circumstances. The first is phrased more like a narcissist would talk, so I picked the second one. Using this strategy, I was forced to pick a lot of answers that made me out to be insecure. But being insecure isn’t illegal or dishonorable, so I usually picked that one when the other option involved any form of lying, stealing, cheating, or ignoring rules. Then as soon as I got the chance to say I wasn’t insecure, I’d pick that answer. So if you pick 1 thing on 1 question, try to pick the opposite of it in a later question.
If you disagree with this strategy, that’s fine, I’m just saying what strategy I used.
STICK AND THROTTLE
Everyone says they thought they did horrible and then was surprised to see their score. I actually thought I was doing pretty good but then only got a 6/6/6 hahaha. (But I did do horrible on math which is the heaviest affecter for the AQR and FOFAR).
Everyone says write down your emergency procedures, which is fine, but you don’t need to write all the details, all you actually need to write down is
FIRE = DOWN
ENGINE = UP
PROPELLOR = UP/NEUTRAL
This makes it super easy. For fire, ALL KNOBS DOWN, THEN CLUTCH. For engine, ALL KNOBS UP, THEN CLUTCH. (it might be fire=up engine=down I can’t remember, but you get the point).
However, I believe I missed the propellor procedure because I didn’t reset my knobs to neutral after the engine emergency. and I THINK the computer automatically resets your gauges to neutral after each emergency, even if your knobs aren’t at neutral. (I also didn’t even noticed the gauges in the bottom right of the screen until the third emergency so that was a bummer). So when the propellor emergency came…my big knob was already in the up position, so I just made sure the little knob was in neutral and pressed the clutch…the emergency didn’t clear, that’s when I noticed the gauges were both at neutral still, so I spun the big knob down and up until it made the gauge move, then pressed the clutch, and the screen flashed red. So I don’t know WHAT happened but I was pretty upset I missed that one, and I THINK it was because my knobs weren’t at neutral to start, so I recommend paying attention to that, and also looking at the gauges in the bottom right of the screen to make sure they’re corresponding with your knobs. I was able to clear the first two emergencies in about 2-2.5 seconds.
Second piece of advice I have, if you’re someone who doesn’t play video games, practice playing shooter games with an inverted y-plane (the vertical-plane, so up is down and down is up). It DOES help. I am not a gamer whatsoever I effing suck at video games, but I played Nazi Zombies and Halo with my 10-year-old brother with an inverted y-plane and it helped a lot on this portion. Try and practice playing like that as much as you can before the test. I sometimes caught myself wanting to mirror horizontally as well…for example, if the airplane started flying to the top left of the screen, you SHOULD bring your stick to the bottom left, but I sometimes found myself wanting to bring my stick to the bottom right of the screen, so I had a tendency to want to invert the vertical AND horizontal planes. And I could have broken that habit with more video game practice. (Hope that makes sense) ALL I’M SAYING IS yes playing video games with an inverted y-plane does make a big difference, so practice that a lot.
Lastly, don't panic or give up at any point. I talked with a ch-53 pilot prior to this and he said the test is impossible to beat. It's made that way on purpose, so don't feel like you're doing horribly. It's purposely impossible. He said all they want to see is how often and how close you can get the crosshairs to the airplane.
DICHOTIC LISTENING
RIP OFF THE HEADPHONE YOU’RE NOT USING. I don’t know why no one is saying this?? If the voice says “Listen to your right ear” then I would take the headphone off of my left ear and place it behind my head…that way I could only hear my right ear. This made it so easy. And then as soon as the voice said listen to your left ear, I would let go of both stick and throttle and switch the headphones so that the left muff was on my left ear and the right muff was off of my right ear. It takes 1 second and I only missed 1 of the numbers across all of the listening portions.
ADDITIONAL ADVICE
Other than that…my last piece of advice would be don’t put too much pressure on yourself with this test. After reading all the horror stories from this forum, I put an immense amount of pressure on myself to study for this test. I actually went into this test CONFIDENT that I wasn’t going to pass…I didn’t feel ready and I didn’t expect to pass, I fully expected to have to take it again in 30 days. The only reason I was taking it today was because my recruiter was “forcing” me to. Imagine my surprise after seeing my score. I’m really glad I was “forced” to take it now, because if it were up to me, I would have studied for another month before taking it. Now I don’t have to! I’m not saying don’t take it seriously, I studied for probably 100 hours total, with 8 hours a day the last 7 days leading up to it. But, don’t put too much pressure on yourself either. After a decent amount of studying, just take it once, because you might actually pass. And if you completely bomb it, then just go back to studying.
OH, ALSO. For the first 7 months of creeping this forum, the website owner wouldn’t accept my account no matter how many times I emailed, so I couldn’t access any of the attachments and it was incredibly frustrating. So if you’re reading this and have the same problem as me, email me at
raina.tschantre@gmail.com and I’ll hook you up.
