Just took it on Thursday. First off a huge thanks to everyone who has posted their experiences here. Reading through and studying based off of this thread was a huge part of my preparation to take the ASTB. I'm primarily interested in SWO, but took the full ASTB as my recruiter asked me to (is it needed for intel?) So a slightly different perspective below on what is difficult about the aviation half of the test.
Scores
OAR: 70, AQR: 9, PFAR: 8, FOFAR: 8
Math:
I either took the full 40 minutes or was cut-off ~15 seconds before the end, I'm not sure which.
Nos: No matrices, no logarithms (I think there was nothing I was supposed to solve with them...), no work rate x/10 + x/15 = 1 type questions. No binomial theorem 2 out of four children type questions (but was still worth figuring out thoroughly to understand probabilities better.)
Yes: Questions on test averages asked in slightly difficult/strange ways, a complicated and weird system of equations type question (sorry, I don't remember it well enough to describe it), negative exponents with fractions, special properties of equilateral/scalene/isosceles triangles, pizza/area/arc conversion, a very simple rates question (which I completely blanked on how to do annoyingly), a few simple probabilities.
Reading:
This went fine. I always hate critical reading sections due to always having 2 I think work as answers just fine, but do very well on them. I assume this was true here as well. Very dry material as others have stated, this was the only section where I got quite distracted, just due to being so bored by it rather than anything distracting occurring in the rest of the office. I think I was cut off, but couldn't say for sure. No good suggestions for how to study for it.
Mechanics:
I think I was cut off, but it was only 15 minutes, so I could just be remembering that because of how short the section was.
Nos: No gears, no circuits, I actually think there was no electricity at all.
Yes: My third question was a bizarre one related to protons approaching the speed of light in a particular device - I had and have no idea what the answer is/was. A couple questions related to d = vt + 1/2at^2, which oddly was not covered in any of the prep books I used. Does buoyancy depend on temperature? There was some sort of angular velocity/momentum/acceleration question, I didn't know how to do it (I gave up on learning the angular stuff.) No real mechanical advantage questions. Every question I had was about pulleys in systems where the MA was 1...
Aviation:
The Nautical/Aviation history section went about as expected. Some nautical stuff I knew just because of having been interested for my whole life and reading the right materials. Some stuff I had no idea about. And the aviation stuff was a bit of a mess. I didn't specifically study for this section, but I did get curious and read through the relevant bit of the study guide posted here and the Barron's review book.
UAV section:
East and west... I got several wrong because I confused the two. I definitely recommend the drawing a compass trick suggested earlier in this thread, I hadn't intended to do that but as soon as I saw what the test was on the day of, I drew it, it helped tremendously.
The rest of the aviation section:
Like everyone says, you walk out of there thinking you did terribly regardless of how well you actually did. I thought it was the most hilariously sadistic fun computer game I had played in a while. I think I did well on this section because 1. I am a huge computer gamer and 2. I have used a joystick with inverted controls before. To study for this section you want to practice using a joystick and simultaneous multi-tasking. A few studying ideas (not suggestions since I didn't specifically try any of them prior to the test.) In no particular order:
- Ibb & Obb is a two player co-op same screen game. It has a mode where you can play both characters yourself on a single keyboard. I suggest doing this and making a genuine effort to control them both simultaneously, not sequentially.
- Pinball: Buy some food. Borrow a friend's laptop for ~30 minutes, put 3d pinball for windows - space cadet (or any other pinball game) on their laptop and your own. Place the laptops next to each other, sit between them and play both games simultaneously (configure the controls so that your hands don't need to dart all over the keyboards.) Your friend can sit, eat your food and laugh at you as you struggle.
- Starcraft 2: Play online, force yourself to be competitive about it, pay attention to your actions per minute on the score screen at the end of the game - try to increase it every time you play! This will make it more stressful, which is the point. Starcraft 2 forces multitasking to an insane degree.
- You can add the listening to any of this if you want to practice that as well.
The idea with any/all of the above is just to practice multitasking simultaneously rather than just sequentially as we all do normally. Try to get used to having one eye look at one thing and the other looking at another. I do not know for certain if these ideas will work, but I do think they well stress you in similar ways to the actual test.
Studied:
Barron's - Very useful starting point. Fairly thorough. Does not aim to prepare you for the most difficult questions you will face, but rather the average question.
Accepted - Has a test, maybe two? Overall not worth the cost.
Dummies - Very useful end point. I initially ignored this one since it had some questions involving sin/cos which could not be solved except with a calculator, but that was a mistake. Skip the trig questions you can't do without a calculator, force yourself do all the other questions without a calculator. It also had the best study materials by far. I felt like I was studying material more difficult than was likely to show up on the test, which is how I like to study so that I can forget the most difficult subjects and still be good to go.
Peterson - Frankly don't remember. Didn't hate it. Didn't love it. It may have been the first book I used.
ARCO/GRE math book - I didn't remember how to do long division or even basic written out multiplication before I started studying in September. Pathetic, I know. This book won't cover everything you need to know, but if you are a liberal arts / social "science" major who needs a quick run through of math starting from elementary school - this is your book.
Marine Gauge - Useful, another perspective on the same material.
Basic Machines and How They Work - Great. (If you have the time.) This book/pdf, just google it, covered simple to complex machines in far greater depth than any of the other materials. For that reason I think it was worth the day I spent studying it. (I should note that other than feeling slightly more mechanically competent there was very little on my test covered here.)
This thread - I went through more or less this entire thread and pulled out all of the examples that people wrote that they saw on their tests, made a study packet and made sure I knew how to do every last one of them. This was by far the most worthwhile thing I did while studying.
ASTB Personal Study Guide (from this thread) - The second most worthwhile thing to study. Seriously, study this, it will help more than everything else.
My Study Guide - I found myself glazing over whenever I tried to study by the end so I tested what I knew by writing a small study guide of materials not covered in the study guide here. I thought this was actually a very effective way of learning the material better than I had before - I certainly felt much more comfortable with it afterwards.
Apologies for how long-winded I was. Thank you very much again to everyone who posted here! I'm attaching here the mini material I made for myself in case it helps anyone else.
