Hey y’all, I just took the ASTB’s today and wanted to give my 2 cents to pay it forward. This forum helped a ton, and I want to keep that positive feedback loop going. Warning: this is a pretty long post, but I wanted to put down all of my thoughts while they were fresh.
General thoughts - My big takeaway from this test is that it’s about nerves more than anything. The level of questions asked were not nearly as hard as expected, and that actually tripped me up (which I’ll get to later). If you want to succeed and get good scores, visualize it in your mind. Visualize what it feels like, what you’ll be doing, what your face will look like, visualize it all. This might seem like BS, but trust me, it goes a LONG way to getting what you want, and staying motivated. I’m a former national team level pro athlete, and know that this will get you results, whether directly or indirectly. Same applied to this test.
MST - The math section carried my OAR hard. I got every question right, and this helped compensate for other crappy scores. The questions presented were about 30% probabilities, 20% exponents, 10% quadratic equations, 20% geometry, and 20% other stuff. I got one matrix multiplication problem, but it was easy because the other answers were so wrong you didn’t even have to solve the problem. Just know the basic concepts, and you’ll be fine. I literally watched a 4 min YouTube video the day before, so it’s good to touch it, even briefly. Strangely, didn’t get any DRT, work, or mixture problems.
RCT - Very dry reading. Many of them I have no idea if I answered correctly. Not much to prepare for here - you’re either good at this, or you’re not.
MCT - This really got me. I over-prepped for this one by memorizing formulas, MA problems, gears, pulleys, the whole bit. None of it was relevant, and instead I got asked questions like “if person A drops a bullet and another fires it horizontally, which will hit the ground first”. I completely blanked on these types of questions because it was so unexpected, and did horribly - probably brining down my OAR. Focus on the basics when studying. Then move on to more complex stuff.
ANIT - I got asked obscure questions like “what altitude would a plane heading 090 travel, if under VFR conditions”. The ASTB app on the App Store covers ANIT pretty well, and has some good flash cards to go with it. Probably got a few questions wrong here, but overall wasn’t too difficult.
NATFI - Not much to say here, other than make sure to keep it brisk. I don’t know if my connection was slow, but each question took like 15 seconds to load after answering the previous one. There are 99 Q’s to be answered in 35 mins… so don’t overthink it.
UAV portion - Some people like the compass trick, and others don’t. IMHO you should only use this if you’re really bad at directional orientation. It takes way too much time to rotate and answer each one (at least for me), and speed matters in this test. DO make sure you practice with the flash cards a ton, however.
PBM - This was actually pretty fun. There’s an awesome sim floating around the forums with Top Gun music, and it definitely helped. Don’t panic if you get something wrong, just keep going with a cool head. On the emergencies part, make sure you turn the dials based on the on-screen graphics. I incorrectly assumed the direction of the dials, and got one of the procedures wrong - which probably knocked my PFAR. And, WRITE THE PROCEDURES DOWN.
Other thoughts - Get to the site early. It’s likely in an unfamiliar place, and the last thing you want is to be late. Bring a sweatshirt just in case. Hydrate beforehand. Get plenty of exercise 2 days before to work off nerves.
Again, thanks to everybody who’s posted in this forum before me, and hopefully this helps! Next steps for me will be MEPS clearance, and the prepping the rest of my package. Hoping for SNA slot.
