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

aspiringSwo

Member
3.6 Computer Science graduate. I took the OAR for the first time 1/8/20. 69 OAR. Digital version.

Studied the guides on the forum for mechanical comprehension for about a week. I studied simple machines and some electricity and circuits. I took the practice test materials from the guides here and just learned the correct way to solve the problem every time I got something wrong. Also bought Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Test for the 2 practice ASTB-E tests at the end of the book.

Math - They got me with some difficult exponents and logarithms about 5 questions total for these. Rest are the simple kinds of questions with a lot of arithmetic.

Reading - All questions reading comprehension based, infer the choice from the passage. Do not study any vocabulary, waste of time.

Mechanical Comprehension - Fairly straight forward. Mostly simple machines, mechanical advantage calculations, and acceleration. There was a question for airplane speed and holes in the wings that I didn't understand.

Pro-tip: Actual testing software didn't tell me the number of questions for each section or the time I had left for the test. I rushed through the test because of this reason.

Bring your own analogue watch, they took my digital watch.
 

JSaint23

Well-Known Member
Undergrad in Finance & Economics, 2.87 GPA. Graduated in June of 2018. (Prior Service, 5 Years Enlisted Navy, AO BABY!!!!)

Scores:

OAR: 52
6/6/6

Ok,

I'd first like to thank everyone on this forum. It's only through our collective efforts that we're actually able help people succeed and I definitely met my goal. I'll go ahead and give a brief explanation to save you time but also try to jam pack as much detail about the test as I can so here goes this spark noted version of what to expect on the ASTB-E....you ready???

FIRST OF ALL! Nobody's experience is the same!!!

I prioritized mentioning the prior statement because the test is adaptive and depending on how many questions you get right will determine the difficulty level of the questions that the test generates. However, with that being said I will give you my experience but please take it with a grain of salt. What's important are the studying habits and determination to get the scores you'll need to actually qualify to submit a package and get picked up.

Math: I studied my ass off for this as this WILL BE the section of the test that carries the most weight for your OAR score, BELIEVE IT! I encountered multiple exponential problems just like most people have. I also encountered the typical D= R X T problems, word of advice for those problems in particular, when you're at the end of the problem and you think you've answered it correctly but it still isn't making sense, it's because you've yet to convert the answer into the final form i.e. minutes, miles etc etc...had a real challenge on that one. Overall I feel I did ok and judging by my score I wasn't that far off.

Reading: #1 WORD OF ADVICE. If the answer isn't literally mentioned in the passage, 80-90% of the time it ins't correct. All of the questions are "Inference" questions meaning you have to understand what the passage is saying, so in other words studying vocabulary is more than likely a waste of your time. Once again I would say that I did ok in this area. What I took away from this section was the Navy wants officers who can understand what people are "Saying" not what they "Mean to Say". People who read this and truly understand "People" will understand what that actually means.

Mechanical Comprehension: Man! This ironically is probably one of the easiest sections to study for, though the one section I was worried most about forgetting the formulas for physics, science, and electricity. With that being said, just study the mechanical comprehension section in Barron's ASTB study Guide booklet...and then study them again, and then literally try to apply the principals you learn in the book to a couple scenario's in real life and you'll retain the information 10X as fast.....believe me! I spent forever trying to understand how to calculate the Mechanical Advantage of a pulley System, when all you have to do is count how many ropes there are minus the rope with no tension...ridiculously simple.

ANIT: Ok, these are the easiest sections to study for, my advice and please follow verbatim, study the Barron's Aviation Technical Knowledge section, and I mean study until you've memorized most of the information and then study the ANIT gouge/study guide, you can find it on page 353 of this forum, just scroll down and you'll find a link that'll contain the study guide to ANIT and the rest of the sections of the test as well. I murdered this section because I'm applying for a pilot position and I knew that I had to focus my energy and concentration for studying this section coupled with the PBM section to get a decent enough score to be eligible. Know all Aircraft parts and what they do as well as Naval War history along with the flight principal and VFR (Visual Flight Rules) and IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) and you'll do fine.

UAV: This section is incredibly easy to study...one trick that will land you a perfect score no matter who you are and no matter whether or not you have flight experience or you work at Walmart full time, here's the video
. If the link doesn't end up working just go to Youtube and type in "UAV ASTB". I swear that guy should literally teach how to pass the test because he's brilliant. Also study these flash cards, they are EXACTLY like the test. The link for the flash cards are https://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/story.php?title=astb-uav-portion. Try to do the quiz and time yourself then divide total time by how many questions you're presented with, convert to seconds and you'll have your average reaction time just like during the real exam. They score you on accuracy and timing but believe me ACCURACY IS MORE IMPORTANT!!!

PBM:
Here we go...the fun section LOL This section I studied my tail off for!!! I mean I did everything short of calling the person up who created the test to ask how to pass it lol...no seriously. I was most worried about this section due to the fact I hadn't spent any time in any flight simulators or anything but honestly as long as you pre-orient yourself with the inverted joystick you'll do fine. When they combine the plane up and down tracking and the 2D plane tracking please please please FOCUS ON THE 2D and keep the up and down cross hair in your peripheral, it works!

P.S. Pay very close attention to the dichotic listening test instructions!!!

The test will give you instructions that basically say ONLY press the button that corresponds to the "Target Ear" This DOES NOT mean that if an even number is mentioned hit the right trigger and if an odd number is mentioned hit the left trigger. The test will mention the ear and ONLY that specific ear you need to be paying attention to and if the correct type of number is mentioned in that ear THEN you press the trigger or clutch button depending on which ear it is. For example, if the test says "Right" and then starts saying numbers and letters, your job is to listen for an EVEN number that comes into you're RIGHT ear and Vise Vera for your Left ear the test will say "Left" and then say numbers and letters and you're now listening for an ODD number that you hear in your LEFT ear. Sounds confusing I know and a lot of people including myself completely effed up this section because we didn't pay attention to the instructions!

STUDY EMERGENCY PROCEDURES BEFORE GETTING TO THE TEST!!!

FIRE LIGHT: FUEL LOW, POWER LOW, PRESS CLUTCH BUTTON

ENGINE LIGHT: FUEL MAX, POWER MAX, PRESS CLUTCH BUTTON

PROPELLER LIGHT: FUEL 50%, POWER MAX, PRESS CLUTCH BUTTON.


The quicker you get rid of the emergency procedures the better, when the light's come on you stop what you're doing and fix the emergency.


I know this was long but I felt as though I owed this to anybody looking to take this test and become the best officer they can be, especially for prospecting Pilots....IYOYAS!!!!!! and GOD BLESS!!!

Jairmiya
 
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Cbienaim

Member
Hello everyone! I'm currently in the Navy as an LS3 (logistic specialist 3rd class), and I've been just reading through threads for the past 2 weeks and I just want to say shout out to this community, I've found a ton of helpful info that has been helping me study. Especially the math portions that I am kind of freaking out about.
I do have a question I hope can be answered, which is when it comes to the probability questions has anyone seen one that look similar to this: P(a)xP(b)=P(a/b) or are the probability questions more along the lines of 'if there are 3 red beads and 7 green beads in a bag, what are the chances of picking 3 red beads if once picked you don't put them back?' (obviously in a more complex way). Thank you any input helps. Taking the ASTB on February 3rd and have been studying 2-5 hours a day for 2 solid weeks now so hopefully I'm scoring high.
 

aspiringSwo

Member
Hello everyone! I'm currently in the Navy as an LS3 (logistic specialist 3rd class), and I've been just reading through threads for the past 2 weeks and I just want to say shout out to this community, I've found a ton of helpful info that has been helping me study. Especially the math portions that I am kind of freaking out about.
I do have a question I hope can be answered, which is when it comes to the probability questions has anyone seen one that look similar to this: P(a)xP(b)=P(a/b) or are the probability questions more along the lines of 'if there are 3 red beads and 7 green beads in a bag, what are the chances of picking 3 red beads if once picked you don't put them back?' (obviously in a more complex way). Thank you any input helps. Taking the ASTB on February 3rd and have been studying 2-5 hours a day for 2 solid weeks now so hopefully I'm scoring high.

These questions are solved quite literally.

First pick: 3 red/ 10 total = 3/10 chance
Second pick: 2 red/ 9 total = 2/9 chance
Third pick: 1 red/ 8 total = 1/8 chance

Multiply all the chances and you get 1/120
 

Cbienaim

Member
These questions are solved quite literally.

First pick: 3 red/ 10 total = 3/10 chance
Second pick: 2 red/ 9 total = 2/9 chance
Third pick: 1 red/ 8 total = 1/8 chance

Multiply all the chances and you get 1/120
I understand that my question was more in how the questions were structured on the exam, but thank you!
 

JSaint23

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone! I'm currently in the Navy as an LS3 (logistic specialist 3rd class), and I've been just reading through threads for the past 2 weeks and I just want to say shout out to this community, I've found a ton of helpful info that has been helping me study. Especially the math portions that I am kind of freaking out about.
I do have a question I hope can be answered, which is when it comes to the probability questions has anyone seen one that look similar to this: P(a)xP(b)=P(a/b) or are the probability questions more along the lines of 'if there are 3 red beads and 7 green beads in a bag, what are the chances of picking 3 red beads if once picked you don't put them back?' (obviously in a more complex way). Thank you any input helps. Taking the ASTB on February 3rd and have been studying 2-5 hours a day for 2 solid weeks now so hopefully I'm scoring high.
Go to Khan academy and study “marbles” and then study “probability”. You’ll find your answers there.
J
 

jlebsock

Member
Hello everyone! I'm currently in the Navy as an LS3 (logistic specialist 3rd class), and I've been just reading through threads for the past 2 weeks and I just want to say shout out to this community, I've found a ton of helpful info that has been helping me study. Especially the math portions that I am kind of freaking out about.
I do have a question I hope can be answered, which is when it comes to the probability questions has anyone seen one that look similar to this: P(a)xP(b)=P(a/b) or are the probability questions more along the lines of 'if there are 3 red beads and 7 green beads in a bag, what are the chances of picking 3 red beads if once picked you don't put them back?' (obviously in a more complex way). Thank you any input helps. Taking the ASTB on February 3rd and have been studying 2-5 hours a day for 2 solid weeks now so hopefully I'm scoring high.
Use these links to study probability. I got nothing too intense on the test but they were similar to the problems in these links.

https://probabilityformula.org/probability-with-replacement.html

https://probabilityformula.org/probability-without-replacement.html
 

mstewart5

New Member
Hello all,
First off, I want to thank everyone in the community for the information they have shared on the forum as it has been invaluable. I am scheduled to take the ASTB for the first time the 22nd and was wondering with regards to the emergency procedures, is there an ideal placement to have the sliders and nozzles before hand? I've seen some references to this in prior posts but was unsure if there was a consensus as to what is best.
 
I took it a few months ago, 8/7/8, OAR 65, so I don't remember a lot of the questions. Best tips I could give is to go through all of the google drive gouges posted here and print out the material. There are a lot of duplicates so just keep track, it'll be too much paper if you print out everything. Second thing is that when you're studying, circle the questions you get wrong. Then go over the material a second time and write down in a notebook, the steps or forumlas (mostly for physics but some for math) that you need to take to solve that particular problem. The barrons book will help you with the mechanical/physics section and the aviation knowledge. It's useless for math (way way too easy) and reading (passage format is not similar to the exams).

Math: Harder than I expected. The study guides that helped the most were "Petersons Practice Test 4: Arithmetic Reasoning" and the "OAR Math Practice Guide" by Carlos Miro. You can find it in Kyles ASTB study guide's math section. In general, understand logs, exponents and radicals and how to solve a complex equation involving potentially all 3 of them. Understand probability, series/sequences and some basic statistics.

Reading: Dry, boring. You may get repeated passages if you take the ASTB more than once. Read some Navy documents of this form (https://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-...ions/BUPERSInstructions/Documents/1001.40.pdf ). Read the question first, then look for the answer in the passage.

Mech: Easiest section, do the gouge material. Write down, memorize and understand where the forumlas come from that you will need to use during the exam. You'll do fine if you put in the work for this section before hand.

ANIT: Read the cram flashcards, read the Barrons books section on aviation and read a few chapters of the FAA handbook (no need to know the more complicated stuff in the book). Can be pretty random, I read the entire FAA book and thought I was doing horrible on this section.

NATFI: Just be honest here, you can answer the questions according to the bad/good personality traits for pilots listed in the FAA handbook but I suggest not to. It'll be too hard to keep track (they seem to repeat questions) and you'll waste time/brain power thinking about which traits they're looking for. I almost felt like it wouldn't really effect the score if I had picked entirely different answers than the ones I did.

UAV: Watch the Youtube compass trick video, I'm sure you've all seen it posted here before. Then practice the UAV flashcards a few times. Do it quickly, as quick as you possibly can without error, even a few extra seconds can hurt your score. It may not feel like a big difference between 10 seconds and 4 seconds, but this portion seems to care about the time a lot.

PBM: Hardest section. For the listening, zero in on the ear you're told to (I titlted my head towards the right if it was the right ear lol). This will be redundant but forget about the ear you're supposed to ignore. I played War Thunder in prep for the rest. I bought a thrustmaster controller. During the exam, when you push forward on the throttle (the left part of the controller) the crosshair moves up, and when you pull the throttle towards you the crosshair moves down. For the joystick (the right part of the controller), pushing the joystick forward moves the crosshair down and pulling the joystick towards you moves the crosshair up. Right down the emergency procedures controls before that section starts so that you don't forgot them. Just try to do your best here and don't panic or give up if you think you're doing bad (note: everyone probably thinks they're doing bad on this section).

Good luck!
 
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