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

PhlyHigh94

Well-Known Member
Hey all, new to the thread just took my astb. So I probably did as good/bad as some people first time around.
OAR 41, 4/5/4
I’m a civilian pilot so I thought the stick and throttle would be easy. Felt like I did better than what I scored. Been reading a lot of the posts on how to get better on math and mechanical. Lot of it seems straight forward. I know I can do better.
My two areas that really bothered me was UAV. I did pretty well on the straight forward ones. I struggled on the directions that came at an angle in between west and south for example. My other area that I struggled/didn’t work. I did the correct procedures for the emergency procedures. However, one or two of them I died. Did anyone else have this problem? The other issue was, when it states 100% for example. Does that mean the meter will go into the red on the dial? Or is it supposed to go green when you do it right? Answering that might be what I did wrong.
Reading and the ANIT was pretty easy for me. Out of maybe nerves I clicked the wrong buttons for some of the hearing tests. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
- Same here. Ended up with 3/5/3. I think since we fly, there must be that factor where we have to unlearn everything we have learned. It’s easier for someone who has never flown to do better at PBM section that us pilots, and I have an instrument rating. I fucked up big time on the dichotic listening, was hitting the trigger for odd numbers and clutch for even, and it was supposed to be opposite. Basically I took the first time cold as a way to find out what exactly would be in the ASTB and rushed through the whole thing. I did so bad, I didn’t even get the emergencies to do. Hopefully second time around I get those 7’s.
 

PhlyHigh94

Well-Known Member
Took the ASTB a couple days ago. Background: 26, MIS major, 3.10 GPA, Prior enlisted Airman, Pilot and NFO age waiver. I honestly felt underprepared going into it; I work full time, go to school full time, and drill for the AirNG once a month. However, I studied the crap out of these flashcards which were a huge help for the ANIT, and I also worked through the math problem document that Jacob's (the 9/9/9 guy) post linked to which was also a great refresher.

For the math section, I didn't really get anything that I thought was too difficult so I was kind of worried, knowing that the test is adaptive. I never got kicked out of the test and I actually ran out of time. Most of the questions that I remember had to do with solving for x, and there was one about the odds of getting a heart from a shuffled deck. Also, there were a couple questions about finding the last two test scores, knowing the final average and the other test scores. Another one was finding the missing angle of an acute triangle where the other two angles are like (3x-1) and the missing angle's supplementary angle was 4x. Another one had to do with a barn's size based on its shadow knowing a man's height and the shadow's height.

Reading: Went into this confident. I'm a reader, after all..Wow, incredibly boring and they do a great job trying to trick you. Also ran out of time on this one. All the aforementioned tips are correct. Only one answer is fully supported by the paragraph, so pay attention. I was pretty drained when this portion started and the questions also seemed to alternate between easy and hard which had me confused.

Mechanical: I have practically no background in mechanics. I also barely studied for this section which was stupid, and I honestly had to give my best educated guess on almost every problem. I had a questions like: At the same time, a bullet is fired from a gun and a bullet is dropped from the same height. Which will reach the ground faster? I said the gun bullet. Some other ones: where is the kinetic enegy greater, trying to find the mass of a toy car that is pushed with the force of 4 somethings and travels 2 m/s^2(I guessed 2kg), which ball would reach the ground faster if one was dropped and one was tossed into the air(guessed the tossed ball). No gear, pulley, etc questions.


NATFI: awful. You don't take the NATFI, the NATFI takes you.

UAV: Definitely use the flashcards linked in this thread. The practice session was helpful, but I was somewhat nervous on this portion and missed 3 because I was trying to go to fast. One of those errors was because I clicked a box I didn't mean to, so try and remain calm during this section. I ranged from 1.X seconds to 5.

Dichotic listening: Not terrible. Lean into the ear your supposed to be listening to. I got a couple wrong because I pressed the wrong button trying to be extremely quick.

Vertical tracking: Not very hard at all. It tries to shake you but when you're only focusing on it, it's not difficult.

Aircraft tracking: Not very easy. I switched all my gaming to inverted Y axis and it was a MASSIVE help. I can't even play games with a normal Y axis anymore, I'm ruined.

Both at the same time: I felt like a hot mess. I can't give any tips here, I basically just tried to get in the zone and do the damn thing.

Both with listening: My favorite part, because the listening distracted me from how poorly I thought I was doing.

Emergency Procedures: I wrote them down, and I recommend you do as well, but they were so simple I didn't reference the sheet. The first emergency I forgot to press the clutch to reset for a few seconds, but the next two went well.

When this was all over I saw my scores: 57 6/7/7. Not the greatest, but I literally did a jumping fist pump on my way to the door(I was the only examinee). My recruiter seemed pretty happy with them too. I was disqualified from pilot at the NAMI because my eyesight was just poor enough so I'll probably only apply for NFO since I'm iffy about LASIK.
- Send me an email. I will hook you up with the current doc at API. Really cool guy. He might steer you in the right direction. Eyesight shouldn’t be a big deal unless you have no depth perception or you have astigmatism.
 

FormerRecruitingGuru

Making Recruiting Great Again
- Send me an email. I will hook you up with the current doc at API. Really cool guy. He might steer you in the right direction. Eyesight shouldn’t be a big deal unless you have no depth perception or you have astigmatism.

He just said he was DQ’d from SNA at NAMI. Don’t know what kind of hookup at API will help...
 

PhlyHigh94

Well-Known Member
It’s all good. At least he found out on the front end instead of most Navy DQ applicants who get the whammy at OCS or Pensacola.
- Yep. The new doc at API will be the flight surgeon of the Bue Angels. Really cool guy. Seems very knowledgeable and tolerant when it comes stuff.
 

PhlyHigh94

Well-Known Member
-
I posted earlier about taking the ASTB for the second time. I was lucky enough to nail this test on my third and final time. My first set of scores were a 37, 4,7,4. I took the test a second time with a 40, 4,5,4. Taking the test a final time I was able to score 45, 6,8,6. Huge shoutout to CHOPS_avn for the help. I will tell you guys I am not the best person at math. I recommend giving it a go for a third if you are on the edge. It was a huge gamble on my part but I wanted to apply for pilot really bad.
MATH
I used Learning Express Officer candidate book, Barron's flight guide, and 2018 ASTB guide. I can not stress enough these books are inadequate for anyone with math struggles. The file of 114 math questions was absolutely essential. I know for a shadow of a doubt that doing these problems over and over again helped me get better scores. I can not stress enough, doing these problems will help you. The ASTB personal study guide and the gouges were really helpful.
Reading
Questions were straightforward, many had questions that 2-3 of the answers made no sense or little words went against the paragraph. Fairly simple and straightforward.
Mechanical
I used a few items to study for this section. My main studying came from the ASTB Mechanical flashcards. They helped out a lot and the bulk of my questions came from this.
https://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/story.php?title=astb-mechanical-comprehension-test
I will recommend another book that people have not read. My major was aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle. This book I am attaching below covers math as well, Physic's/Mechanical, and electrical theory. A lot of mechanical questions that are on the ASTB came from this book. Covering, the formulas for work, newtons laws, mechanical advantage, leverage, and other principles. The book has a huge section of the electrical theory that you can draw from. I had a question like, what registers ohms? This book should help below.
ANIT
I am a pilot so this stuff came really easy to me. Study the Gleim pilots guide to help give you a base or use the gouges. I had similar questions on this test.
UAV
Honestly, pilot came back into play again. I did fairly well from my flying on a regular basis. The UAV videos helped some but this stuff came naturally to me. My bulk of missed answers came from the questions where you were coming from the northwest and headed southeast for example. For some reason, the arrow pointing northwest or northeast was easy for me but I struggled on the arrow pointing southeast or southwest. Flight simulators can help a lot with this. It's kind of like looking at a runway.
PBM
I won't go into detail because a lot of people have done this already. My best recommendation for you all is, using a flight sim. If you can spare the expense ACE COMBAT 6 FIRES of LIBERATION on XBOX 360. I purchased the game years ago and play it religiously. XBOX 360 has a joystick and throttle that you can buy for ACE COMBAT 6. Just google ACE COMBAT 6 joystick and throttle. From someone that got an 8 on PBM, buy a stick and throttle. From personal experience, I did not have the stick and throttle for my ACE COMBAT video game on my previous two attempts. Believe me, using that stick and throttle for a combat simulator such as ACE COMBAT made my reaction time much quicker and inverted controls were natural to me. I constantly went for gun kills instead of missile kills which helped me track targets better. Gun kills used a targeting reticle and it paid off. There was a complete difference in my skills going from a XBOX controller to the Joystick. It was a complete game changer and worth the expense.
Listening test was really just reactions and honestly being a pilot helped. Constantly listening for numbers from atc regarding the tail number and others was the edge for me.
Emergency Scenarios
Right down the scenarios like everyone says. I wrote down in huge letters each scenario. I wrote the direction and area of the throttles in large letters. On each scenario, I included the task, control, percentage and direction of control for the percentage. Writing down in large letters almost filling up the page helped tremendously.
My OAR score is the only thing I worry about but I am really satisfied with my ASTB scores especially pilot. I am applying for the February pilot, well see how it goes. If there's any questions regarding pilot items I am happy to help for the test. That is my area of expertise and degree lol. Good luck to everyone else applying.


images
There must be a reason most people who have flying hours do so bad on the joystick throttle portions. I have close to 500 flight hours and sucked on the joystick and throttle portions the first time around. I ended up with a 3/5/3 cause I basically rushed through the instructions cause I was way too excited to see what’s next and to see the scores.
 

wangj231

Member
Hey guys, last Friday I took the ASTB. I scored a 9/8/8 68.

My first attempt, I got a 7/5/6 58. This wasn't passing, since the Marines need a 6 on the PFAR. It wasn't a bad score but the standards are there for the Marines.

This thread has been extremely helpful in terms of knowing what material to expect. I want to share my mistakes and successes in terms of test taking in general.

Here is a list of my mistakes the first time, and how I fixed them the second time.

Too much caffeine on test day, not enough sleep the night before.
I was talking to a candidate who graduated OCS with an aviation contract and he said he took a 5 hour energy before the PBM. I took that to the extreme and had a 5 hour shot in the morning and a medium coffee before/during the ASTB. However, I wasn’t energized. I became anxious, especially during the PBM. This led me to mess up the emergency procedures and be too aggressive with the controls. In addition, I was so wired that I made some stupid mistakes on the math section.

The second attempt, I made sure to get 8 hours of sleep the night before. I pushed back all my other school assignments and prioritized sleep. I only had my standard cup of coffee that morning. I came into the test energized but not overly wired.

Thinking I “didn’t need to study for” certain sections.
I scored highly on my SAT back in high school and was confident I could do well on similar math and reading questions. I am a mathematics major so I thought that the math section would be easy. That I just needed to focus on the mechanical section and ANIT. That’s what some other people from my school were saying and they passed. NOPE. There were a ton of word problems that were hard to comprehend at first, and they got the best of me. The reading section was also dry as hell with a ton of navy specific material, so that was hard to get through.

It didn’t help that I am a math major and I had barely done any hardcore reading for the last 2 years. I bought the recent Barrons military flight aptitude test book, with the SIFT and AFOQT included in that book. I did math and reading practice sections from those tests as well as from the ASTB practice tests.

I also used the the Barron’s GMAT math workbook to get additional practice with complicated algebra problems and word problems. For word problems, know the mixture problems, distance/rate/time, and “work done” problems especially well. I thought the GMAT math was MUCH closer to what’s on the ASTB than what was in the ASTB practice tests I used.

Rushing the test. Do NOT rush.
I was more careful on the math section and paid attention to what the problem was asking for. For the reading, I read the entire passage carefully and did not gloss over it like I did with the SAT way back. There’s no way around reading the entire passage, since there will always be 2 answers that seem correct, but you’ll know which one is better if you really read the passage. Also, there is only one formal break. However, make sure to practice enough so that you get done with each section with 3-5 minutes left. The first attempt I just moved onto the next section.

The second time, I used this time to get up and stretch, do a few pushups, and refocus. This mental break was crucial, since the test was 2+ hours. During the PBM I did the exact same thing. I took time between each section, reading the instructions carefully. Make sure you do that since if you don’t know the procedures well enough it will affect your score. Before dichotic listening I really made sure my headphones were on the right way. There will be a practice section before the real scored section for each of the PBM tests. I took a 30 sec break between the practice section and real deal section to regroup, stand up, stretch, etc. And for the UAV section, everyone says that response time matters more. However, my responses were around 1-2 seconds during my first attempt and I got a lot more wrong. During the second attempt I responded in 3+ seconds on some but I only got 1 wrong, and I scored much higher on the PFAR. There is no rush. Your score matters, not how quickly you did it. Remember to breathe and stretch between sections. Remember to breathe during sections and relax.

Putting too much pressure on myself.
Often I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a perfect score, max the PFT, etc. but this will work against you in the ASTB. The first time I took it I felt I had something to prove to the OSOs, that I needed to get a 9/9/9 80 or else. I know the competitive nature of the pilot selection process so that wound me up more.

However, after the first attempt I sat down with my OSO to discuss ground contract options, in case the ASTB just wasn’t going to work out. It turned out that there were a lot of ground MOS’s that I would love to take, so the ASTB was not a do or die test for me. Going into the second attempt, I just made sure to do my best and to work smartly. To stay present. I honestly didn’t expect to pass going in, but I wanted to give it a try anyways to not miss any opportunities.

Being relaxed helped me perform much better - especially on the PBM. In fact, I started to have fun with the PBM when we moved to the emergency procedures section.
For the PBM I got familiar with vertical tracking but wasn't as good with the joystick. I remember struggling a ton with it, so for the vertical tracking + aircraft tracking and vertical tracking + aircraft tracking + dichotic listening test I concentrated on getting the vertical tracking and listening only. So win some lose some- they say you need to do everything, but just focus on what you can get. I'm pretty sure I neglected the joystick by the end.

Fixating too much on the ASTB and school and letting my fitness take the backseat.
Normally it’s alright to put fitness on the back burner for regular school finals, but it’s not that way with the ASTB. I am a USMC candidate so my PFT is crucial to my selection. I studied hardcore for the first attempt and mistakenly stopped running and got a sh*t run time.

This time around, I designated some hours of the to ASTB review, but other than that, I didn’t think of the ASTB at all. I also stepped up my running - I was running at least 30 mins every day with a lot of speed work. I did at least 25-30 miles a week, just putting in the volume. I love weightlifting, but I knew I should get good at running.

I would pack my running shoes in my backpack wherever I went. I’d leave my backpack in my locked TA office and go for a run in the middle of the school day. I’d run right after doing a practice test for the ASTB. Ended up running a 19:50 on a 3 mile to a 20:36 5k, even while studying for the ASTB and midterms.

So here’s the summary:
  • First attempt: anxious, overcaffeinated, too much negative pressure, fixated and desperate, tested hard.
  • Second attempt: motivated but positive, well rounded studying and life, well-rested and moderately caffeinated, knew I had options, not rushed, tested smart.
I think needing to take the test twice was a blessing in disguise, since I was familiar with the testing environment and format.

I’ll put in any additional tips if you guys want!
 
Last edited:

Scimitarze

Automated Member
Hey guys, last Friday I took the ASTB. I scored a 9/8/8 68.

My first attempt, I got a 7/5/6 58. This wasn't passing, since the Marines need a 6 on the PFAR. It wasn't a bad score but the standards are there for the Marines.

This thread has been extremely helpful in terms of knowing what material to expect. I want to share my mistakes and successes in terms of test taking in general.

Here is a list of my mistakes the first time, and how I fixed them the second time.

Too much caffeine on test day, not enough sleep the night before.
I was talking to a candidate who graduated OCS with an aviation contract and he said he took a 5 hour energy before the PBM. I took that to the extreme and had a 5 hour shot in the morning and a medium coffee before/during the ASTB. However, I wasn’t energized. I became anxious, especially during the PBM. This led me to mess up the emergency procedures and be too aggressive with the controls. In addition, I was so wired that I made some stupid mistakes on the math section.

The second attempt, I made sure to get 8 hours of sleep the night before. I pushed back all my other school assignments and prioritized sleep. I only had my standard cup of coffee that morning. I came into the test energized but not overly wired.

Thinking I “didn’t need to study for” certain sections.
I scored highly on my SAT back in high school and was confident I could do well on similar math and reading questions. I am a mathematics major so I thought that the math section would be easy. That I just needed to focus on the mechanical section and ANIT. That’s what some other people from my school were saying and they passed. NOPE. There were a ton of word problems that were hard to comprehend at first, and they got the best of me. The reading section was also dry as hell with a ton of navy specific material, so that was hard to get through.

It didn’t help that I am a math major and I had barely done any hardcore reading for the last 2 years. I bought the recent Barrons military flight aptitude test book, with the SIFT and AFOQT included in that book. I did math and reading practice sections from those tests as well as from the ASTB practice tests.

I also used the the Barron’s GMAT math workbook to get additional practice with complicated algebra problems and word problems. For word problems, know the mixture problems, distance/rate/time, and “work done” problems especially well. I thought the GMAT math was MUCH closer to what’s on the ASTB than what was in the ASTB practice tests I used.

Rushing the test. Do NOT rush.
I was more careful on the math section and paid attention to what the problem was asking for. For the reading, I read the entire passage carefully and did not gloss over it like I did with the SAT way back. There’s no way around reading the entire passage, since there will always be 2 answers that seem correct, but you’ll know which one is better if you really read the passage. Also, there is only one formal break. However, make sure to practice enough so that you get done with each section with 3-5 minutes left. The first attempt I just moved onto the next section.

The second time, I used this time to get up and stretch, do a few pushups, and refocus. This mental break was crucial, since the test was 2+ hours. During the PBM I did the exact same thing. I took time between each section, reading the instructions carefully. Make sure you do that since if you don’t know the procedures well enough it will affect your score. Before dichotic listening I really made sure my headphones were on the right way. There will be a practice section before the real scored section for each of the PBM tests. I took a 30 sec break between the practice section and real deal section to regroup, stand up, stretch, etc. And for the UAV section, everyone says that response time matters more. However, my responses were around 1-2 seconds during my first attempt and I got a lot more wrong. During the second attempt I responded in 3+ seconds on some but I only got 1 wrong, and I scored much higher on the PFAR. There is no rush. Your score matters, not how quickly you did it. Remember to breathe and stretch between sections. Remember to breathe during sections and relax.

Putting too much pressure on myself.
Often I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a perfect score, max the PFT, etc. but this will work against you in the ASTB. The first time I took it I felt I had something to prove to the OSOs, that I needed to get a 9/9/9 80 or else. I know the competitive nature of the pilot selection process so that wound me up more.

However, after the first attempt I sat down with my OSO to discuss ground contract options, in case the ASTB just wasn’t going to work out. It turned out that there were a lot of ground MOS’s that I would love to take, so the ASTB was not a do or die test for me. Going into the second attempt, I just made sure to do my best and to work smartly. To stay present. I honestly didn’t expect to pass going in, but I wanted to give it a try anyways to not miss any opportunities.

Being relaxed helped me perform much better - especially on the PBM. In fact, I started to have fun with the PBM when we moved to the emergency procedures section.
For the PBM I got familiar with vertical tracking but wasn't as good with the joystick. I remember struggling a ton with it, so for the vertical tracking + aircraft tracking and vertical tracking + aircraft tracking + dichotic listening test I concentrated on getting the vertical tracking and listening only. So win some lose some- they say you need to do everything, but just focus on what you can get. I'm pretty sure I neglected the joystick by the end.

Fixating too much on the ASTB and school and letting my fitness take the backseat.
Normally it’s alright to put fitness on the back burner for regular school finals, but it’s not that way with the ASTB. I am a USMC candidate so my PFT is crucial to my selection. I studied hardcore for the first attempt and mistakenly stopped running and got a sh*t run time.

This time around, I designated some hours of the to ASTB review, but other than that, I didn’t think of the ASTB at all. I also stepped up my running - I was running at least 30 mins every day with a lot of speed work. I did at least 25-30 miles a week, just putting in the volume. I love weightlifting, but I knew I should get good at running.

I would pack my running shoes in my backpack wherever I went. I’d leave my backpack in my locked TA office and go for a run in the middle of the school day. I’d run right after doing a practice test for the ASTB. Ended up running a 19:50 on a 3 mile to a 20:36 5k, even while studying for the ASTB and midterms.

So here’s the summary:
  • First attempt: anxious, overcaffeinated, too much negative pressure, fixated and desperate, tested hard.
  • Second attempt: motivated but positive, well rounded studying and life, well-rested and moderately caffeinated, knew I had options, not rushed, tested smart.
I think needing to take the test twice was a blessing in disguise, since I was familiar with the testing environment and format.

I’ll put in any additional tips if you guys want!
Fantastic tips thank you! I would've definitely bombed my system with caffeine before the test and now know better not to. Also the gouge about the PBM and UAV was very comforting, I assumed you needed to be lighting fast to get a good score reading the previous write ups using the compass trick. The PBM tidbit seems interesting as well since many highscore writeups I've read focused on the 2D plane the most.
 

cchristoff89

New Member
I'm not sure if anyone can answer this one, or if this holds any water at all, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So, your rating on the OAR, is not only dependent on getting correct answers, but how quickly you come up with said answer. Meaning if you take longer to work through a problem, it would have a negative impact on your score, correct?


So my question is, what has more of a detriment to your score, guessing and getting it wrong, or taking longer than is required to get the right answer? Let's say you're in a situation where you have no clue how to solve a problem, what's the best course of action here that will still yield a high score?
 

PhlyHigh94

Well-Known Member
Fantastic tips thank you! I would've definitely bombed my system with caffeine before the test and now know better not to. Also the gouge about the PBM and UAV was very comforting, I assumed you needed to be lighting fast to get a good score reading the previous write ups using the compass trick. The PBM tidbit seems interesting as well since many highscore writeups I've read focused on the 2D plane the most.
- 2D plane meaning what? Cause both of them are 2D
 

wangj231

Member
I'm not sure if anyone can answer this one, or if this holds any water at all, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So, your rating on the OAR, is not only dependent on getting correct answers, but how quickly you come up with said answer. Meaning if you take longer to work through a problem, it would have a negative impact on your score, correct?


So my question is, what has more of a detriment to your score, guessing and getting it wrong, or taking longer than is required to get the right answer? Let's say you're in a situation where you have no clue how to solve a problem, what's the best course of action here that will still yield a high score?

Its a balance probably. PBM is response time based but others aren't. Also, if you've been stuck for too long on something, it's probably best to pick a random answer and move on.
 
I'm not sure if anyone can answer this one, or if this holds any water at all, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So, your rating on the OAR, is not only dependent on getting correct answers, but how quickly you come up with said answer. Meaning if you take longer to work through a problem, it would have a negative impact on your score, correct?


So my question is, what has more of a detriment to your score, guessing and getting it wrong, or taking longer than is required to get the right answer? Let's say you're in a situation where you have no clue how to solve a problem, what's the best course of action here that will still yield a high score?

FWIW, I took what I consider to be a long amount of time working through problems that were difficult to me on the math section and even the reading section. I even ran out of time on both, and I got a 57 on the OAR portion, which AFAIK is a pretty decent score
 

Rahul Gupta

Active Member
What is the best way to improve your score on the MCT and Reading sections of the ASTB (any guides or books)? I did fairly decent on my first attempt about a month ago but would like to improve my scores. I felt really confident with the math (I'm an Aerospace Egr. major at VT) as well as all of the aviation/nautical knowledge. I know I screwed up on the UAV section and joystick part (screen went red 3 times on engine part and I missed 2 UAV questions along w/ a few slow times of 4-5s). I also felt that the MCT section had some supper easy physics questions and then some very random oddball type questions (literally got one about some type of apparatus set up). The books I studied from are: Trivium ASTB, ASTB Guide 2018, Barrons flight aptitude, and ASTB Secrets. I intend on using this forum to aid me in studying before my next attempt (which will be 5-7 weeks from now).

BTW my score was a 6/6/6 46 (attempt 1) and I studied for 5 months prior to taking the exam.
 
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