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1,001 questions about the ASTB (post your scores & ask your questions here!)
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jtbrogan3
Wannabe
Hey man, I took in 2024 and got a 50 5/5/5 and just got a 61 8/7/7 a few weeks ago. Use the ASTB prep app and OAR tutoring app. A lot of the math there you won't see on the test but drilling it and getting familiar with it regardless is 100% the reason I got my AQR & OAR up so far.
ASTB prep app has some good sim stuff for you. One thing I did notice is that the sensitivity of the joystick and throttle is notably higher on the test than in the ATSB Prep App. Buy the joystick and throttle. It is worth it.
The math in the ASTB prep app is hit or miss. Use the custom math sections because the standard MST recycles the same 100 questions. Mech comp section is a lot harder than the actual test, but again, I recommend getting good at it because it will understand what the test throws at you much more easily.
OAR Tutoring app is the other one I used. Much closer to the test in math and mech comp but the reading section is a waste of time.
Additionally, try to get your hands on FAA and pilot text books. The ASTB app puts a lot of emphasis on Naval terms that I didn't see on the test. They still could be in the question pool, but the most advanced naval question I saw between two test was "what is the poop deck".
CWright007
New Member
Final attempt is July 7th, last score 37 4/6/5, basically I have about 3 weeks left. Been studying since April using the Kyle’s and Gomez folders mostly focusing on math because that’s obviously why my scores are what they are. I also use the ASTB Tutoring App (the Blue background) to crank out the math questions on there. Just want to make sure I’m studying the right stuff in these last weeks and if there’s any other tips I could really use I’d really appreciate it. Shooting for SNFO. Also just got an X52 so I’ll be using that as well for the PBM portion.
szalona
SNA ISEL (Y)
Barrons Military Flight Aptitude Tests workbook (amazon link) helped me out a bunch and bumped my math score up by two points. There is technically only two ASTB exams, but the other branch math sections are practically identical in terms of content covered. The key with all the practice questions and exams is being able to complete them correctly, under a time constraint. Are you comfortable with the math content in general? Do more math practice than you think you may actually need - the goal is to be as accurate as possible. I printed out all the math exams too, I found it easier and more retainable than just staring at my laptop screen lol.
Know your exponent rules, iirc they like to just throw a bunch of exponents and slap them over a fraction to make them look intimidating. The stat questions, too, are just worded in a manner to make them seem tougher than they actually are (hence why repetition under constraint is beneficial).
This is also a good math workbook to grind through (link).
TBAS Study Pro on Steam is basically an exact replica of the PBM portion.
Reading was the hardest for me because I swear they purposely take the most mind-numbingly boring sections lol. Just be slow and remember the only information you need is in the passage. Anything not mentioned in the passage, but in the answers, is not the answer lol.
If your degree is nontechnical and you haven't taken Calc1/Calc2/higher math/physics, a tutor may be a good investment too! I found that the entirety of the physics/mechanical section was basically the first month of my college physics class. Having someone to study with is always helpful. My dad is a PhD in physics and I forced him to sit down with me so I could explain word problems to him, lol.
You have 30 days from your last attempt, but maybe consider taking an extra week or two if you're still not 110% confident.
Little goofy too, but I slept for 9 hours and hydrated a bunch and I think that helped tremendously. The little things.
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Having a good routine to follow makes a tremendous difference, even if it's just a little. I set aside 30 minutes to 1 hour everyday just to study and practice for the ASTB and it got me to where I'm at now. Even now, I still study in chunks so it's easier to digest and understand.Little goofy too, but I slept for 9 hours and hydrated a bunch and I think that helped tremendously. The little things.
szalona
SNA ISEL (Y)
Good evening guys,
This is my first post on the forum, although I have kept up with the thread somewhat for a little over a year now. Like many of you guys I wish to fly for the Navy after I finish college. I decided to finally make an account on here and give a little background on where I am at in the process. Also, I wanted to ask for any tips you all may have given my situation and also just reach out to people in the same boat because I do not know any one personally that has or wants to pursue this.
I started the process in April/March of 2025 by reaching out to my recruiter and set a test date up for that Oct. I studied using the ASTB prep app mainly and utilized the Gomez drive some but not nearly as much as I should have in hindsight. I am currently in college and took classes that summer also so the time I had up until my test date was a mix of school and ASTB preparation which took a bit of juggling. I felt somewhat prepared but honestly I was pretty in my head and nervous the morning of and decided it was best to not study to much before going to the recruiting office.
My results ended up a 51 OAR 5/5/5, so pretty average. All in all I honestly thought I was going to do worse before I went in and I tried not getting too discouraged about my results. I was somewhat happy about the OAR because I set a goal of scoring at least a 50 on it. (I was shooting for 7s but didn't quite get those). I took a break and decided I would wait till this year to attempt again and focus on finishing that fall out in school strong. School kind of took over my time this Spring and I started an internship for the summer in May and taking summer courses so my second attempt has taken a spot on the back burner up to this point. I am shooting for a second attempt in August/September this year so I need to start hitting the books hard again so I crush it on my second attempt. Given this info what would some of y'all recommend for me to increase my scores next time around and is this a good time for a retake or should I reconsider when I should schedule it. I will def be going through the Gomez drive and practicing the stick and throttle portion because i messed up that portion a little. I think I need to get a little faster as well on the mechanical and math sections.
Basically,
51 OAR 5/5/5 (First Attempt)
Applying for SNA
Graduating Dec. 2026 with a Bachelor's in Construction Management
Apologies for the long first post and congrats to everyone that has gotten an SNA or NFO slot this year! I hope one day I will be in the same boat.
This is my first post on the forum, although I have kept up with the thread somewhat for a little over a year now. Like many of you guys I wish to fly for the Navy after I finish college. I decided to finally make an account on here and give a little background on where I am at in the process. Also, I wanted to ask for any tips you all may have given my situation and also just reach out to people in the same boat because I do not know any one personally that has or wants to pursue this.
I started the process in April/March of 2025 by reaching out to my recruiter and set a test date up for that Oct. I studied using the ASTB prep app mainly and utilized the Gomez drive some but not nearly as much as I should have in hindsight. I am currently in college and took classes that summer also so the time I had up until my test date was a mix of school and ASTB preparation which took a bit of juggling. I felt somewhat prepared but honestly I was pretty in my head and nervous the morning of and decided it was best to not study to much before going to the recruiting office.
My results ended up a 51 OAR 5/5/5, so pretty average. All in all I honestly thought I was going to do worse before I went in and I tried not getting too discouraged about my results. I was somewhat happy about the OAR because I set a goal of scoring at least a 50 on it. (I was shooting for 7s but didn't quite get those). I took a break and decided I would wait till this year to attempt again and focus on finishing that fall out in school strong. School kind of took over my time this Spring and I started an internship for the summer in May and taking summer courses so my second attempt has taken a spot on the back burner up to this point. I am shooting for a second attempt in August/September this year so I need to start hitting the books hard again so I crush it on my second attempt. Given this info what would some of y'all recommend for me to increase my scores next time around and is this a good time for a retake or should I reconsider when I should schedule it. I will def be going through the Gomez drive and practicing the stick and throttle portion because i messed up that portion a little. I think I need to get a little faster as well on the mechanical and math sections.
Basically,
51 OAR 5/5/5 (First Attempt)
Applying for SNA
Graduating Dec. 2026 with a Bachelor's in Construction Management
Apologies for the long first post and congrats to everyone that has gotten an SNA or NFO slot this year! I hope one day I will be in the same boat.
jtbrogan3
Wannabe
Get in the books and lock in and you can 100% do it man. First attempt was 50 5/5/5 for me and just pulled a 61 8/7/7 a few years out of school with a non technical degree. If I can do it you def can
Wow, that's awesome man! Yessir just got to grind out some studying for a while and hit those numbers. If you don't mind me asking, how long did you take between your two attempts and what did you do differently the second time preparing to improve your scores? Really wanna knock it out of the park cuz if I got to use up my last attempt I will be stressing out big time lol.
*Also my current cumulative GPA is a 3.36 (Not that it is a massive impact but i intended to include it in my previous post)*
Jaegermeister
SNFO Select
The biggest thing that you can do, especially if you aren't too familiar with using a flight stick, is to practice the PBMs for a bit each day. When it comes to the OAR portions, find what math rules and science concepts you struggle with and read and practice those rules. I can't really give guidance on how to improve the reading comprehension portion since I can't really teach or tell you how to 'read better'.
Yeah I need to focus on math/mechanical for sure. Like I said I felt somewhat prepared but since I focused on the ASTB Prep app so much I think I missed out on some variation in the mathematical problems as well as mechanical. I do play some flight sims in my free time with a HOTAS system but I did not practice the stick and throttle portion like I should have and knew I was underprepared for that part. I think those were my main causes for my current scores. I also messed up on some of the other PBM sections due to getting one wrong and then letting that get to me which caused me to get multiple more wrong from getting flustered.
ShodCapybara
New Member
Hi everyone. been lurking here for a few months, but this is my first time posting. I took the ASTB for the first time on my college campus today (administered to me in the middle of a busy hallway lol), and just wanted to share my thoughts on the test. I scored a 58 8/9/8. I am extremely happy with this score and, in all honesty, quite surprised. I have been lightly prepping for about 4-5 weeks while my main focus has been on my current college classes. Shout out to every gouge on this forum because there were so many little tips and tricks that I found on here that helped me in the test. I don't think this will be a very in-depth gouge compared to some that I have seen on here, but if anyone wants to message me for some more specific details, I am more than happy to chat.
Math
Easily my weakest point on the whole exam. I am in a STEM major (Biomedical sciences) but have more bio and chem classes than physics/math classes, and I literally use a calculator to add 2+2 (okay, maybe not that bad, but the point is I have come to rely on the calculator pretty heavily). So, my prep for math started with re-memorizing some of my times tables (embarrassing lol), re-learning how to do multiplication and division of large numbers by hand, and then slowly getting into some of the more advanced stuff like logs and exponents. I used the ASTB prep app and the Kyle, and Gomez drives for math study. It has been said before, but if you use the ASTB app, use the custom math test section. Go through each type of problem, start with the easy ones and then work up to the hard ones and spend more time on the topics you struggle with. During the test, the more advanced the math got, the more comfortable I felt. It was the simple stuff that threw me off because I hadn't seen it in so long. After I took the math portion of the test, I honestly thought that all was lost. Felt like I was guessing on half the questions and that it was going to screw me over for all the other sections of the test. But luckily it turned out okay I guess? I would assume math is why my OAR score was lower than I would have liked.
Reading
Don't sleep on this section! As someone who considers themselves a fairly good reader, this was harder than I expected. I did not prep for this at all, unless you count reading every night before bed as prep. My only piece of advice for this is to use your scratch paper to write out "abcd" for each question, and as you go through the answers, scratch out the ones that are for sure wrong. This prevents you from going back and rereading answers that you have already read (the answers are quite long sometimes).
Mechanical
This section was simpler than I expected. As long as you know basic formulas like f=ma, you will be fine. Go over mechanical advantage, pulleys, gears, and ramps. If you have taken any physics courses in college (even low-level) this will be easy in comparison.
UAV
I tried to like the compass trick, but for some reason it just never really clicked for me, haha. So I just decided to brute force it and did the ASTB prep app UAV sim for about 20 mins every day. On the prep app, I got to the point where I could usually hit 47/48 or 48/48 almost every time with about 1.20 average reaction time. On the test, I didn't miss any, but my average time was probably a little slower as i was being extra careful.
Joystick and throttle
My prep for this was similar to the UAV. I bought a cheap stick and throttle (HOTAS one I think? idk, but it's not the X52 and doesn't have knobs). I practiced on Jantzen Sim every day. usually 3 separate 5-minute sessions on the second to hardest difficulty. I practice the dichotic listening separately on the ASTB app because the Jantzen sim dichotic listening is different from the test, and I didnt want to get used to doing it a different way. As for the emergency procedures, I was worried about this part because, as I said, my practice throttle didnt have knobs. So I made sure to carefully write down the procedures, and next to each one I wrote exactly what to do for each step. For example: step 1, turn top knob all the way to the left. All in all the actual tracking felt easy after practicing on Jantzen, so I definitely recommend that. Buying a joystick is definitely worth it.
Sorry this is kind of a disjointed gouge! Just wanted to get as much out as I could while it was fresh. As I said, feel free to reach out if you want more specifics or advice!! Last tip: do not stress. 2-3 days ago, I crashed out because I felt like I was totally underprepared for this, so i decided to go in with 0 expectations and essentially just treat this as a scouting mission for my 2nd attempt. I think this took away a lot of the nerves and definitely worked to my advantage. If I can do it, you can do it! Best of luck, everyone.
Math
Easily my weakest point on the whole exam. I am in a STEM major (Biomedical sciences) but have more bio and chem classes than physics/math classes, and I literally use a calculator to add 2+2 (okay, maybe not that bad, but the point is I have come to rely on the calculator pretty heavily). So, my prep for math started with re-memorizing some of my times tables (embarrassing lol), re-learning how to do multiplication and division of large numbers by hand, and then slowly getting into some of the more advanced stuff like logs and exponents. I used the ASTB prep app and the Kyle, and Gomez drives for math study. It has been said before, but if you use the ASTB app, use the custom math test section. Go through each type of problem, start with the easy ones and then work up to the hard ones and spend more time on the topics you struggle with. During the test, the more advanced the math got, the more comfortable I felt. It was the simple stuff that threw me off because I hadn't seen it in so long. After I took the math portion of the test, I honestly thought that all was lost. Felt like I was guessing on half the questions and that it was going to screw me over for all the other sections of the test. But luckily it turned out okay I guess? I would assume math is why my OAR score was lower than I would have liked.
Reading
Don't sleep on this section! As someone who considers themselves a fairly good reader, this was harder than I expected. I did not prep for this at all, unless you count reading every night before bed as prep. My only piece of advice for this is to use your scratch paper to write out "abcd" for each question, and as you go through the answers, scratch out the ones that are for sure wrong. This prevents you from going back and rereading answers that you have already read (the answers are quite long sometimes).
Mechanical
This section was simpler than I expected. As long as you know basic formulas like f=ma, you will be fine. Go over mechanical advantage, pulleys, gears, and ramps. If you have taken any physics courses in college (even low-level) this will be easy in comparison.
UAV
I tried to like the compass trick, but for some reason it just never really clicked for me, haha. So I just decided to brute force it and did the ASTB prep app UAV sim for about 20 mins every day. On the prep app, I got to the point where I could usually hit 47/48 or 48/48 almost every time with about 1.20 average reaction time. On the test, I didn't miss any, but my average time was probably a little slower as i was being extra careful.
Joystick and throttle
My prep for this was similar to the UAV. I bought a cheap stick and throttle (HOTAS one I think? idk, but it's not the X52 and doesn't have knobs). I practiced on Jantzen Sim every day. usually 3 separate 5-minute sessions on the second to hardest difficulty. I practice the dichotic listening separately on the ASTB app because the Jantzen sim dichotic listening is different from the test, and I didnt want to get used to doing it a different way. As for the emergency procedures, I was worried about this part because, as I said, my practice throttle didnt have knobs. So I made sure to carefully write down the procedures, and next to each one I wrote exactly what to do for each step. For example: step 1, turn top knob all the way to the left. All in all the actual tracking felt easy after practicing on Jantzen, so I definitely recommend that. Buying a joystick is definitely worth it.
Sorry this is kind of a disjointed gouge! Just wanted to get as much out as I could while it was fresh. As I said, feel free to reach out if you want more specifics or advice!! Last tip: do not stress. 2-3 days ago, I crashed out because I felt like I was totally underprepared for this, so i decided to go in with 0 expectations and essentially just treat this as a scouting mission for my 2nd attempt. I think this took away a lot of the nerves and definitely worked to my advantage. If I can do it, you can do it! Best of luck, everyone.
ShodCapybara
New Member
Totally forgot to add, for the aviation and nautical section, I mostly studied from the cram flashcards and a few other decks on Quizlet. Not much else to do for this section other than grind those flashcards.