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

SeaPilot

New Member
Anyone got advice on getting faster at the mechanical section? I can understand it, but takes some time. What helped you to get them all answered in time?
 

TF7325

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Anyone got advice on getting faster at the mechanical section? I can understand it, but takes some time. What helped you to get them all answered in time?
Practice the problem sets, and get a fundamental understanding of the concepts. There’s a lot of examples out there, just google or YouTube them.
 

Cbienaim

Member
Alright here’s my synopsis of the ASTB-E, again my score was 54 4,4,5 (I’m really going for SWO or Supply so the aviation portions was just a plus for me). Also I want to say what u put in is what u get out I studied 2-3 hours daily for almost 2 months, and up to 5 hours on the weekends. Just put it all out there if you want it.

Math: So hands down I spent my most time studying this because shit my last math class was a stats class 2 years ago (Health admin major). As you know it’s an intuitive test and the better you do the harder it get and the faster it will be over with. I had 2 questions similar to ‘Jim got a 80,83, and 85 on his first 3 exams, what will he have to score on the 4th to have a 85 overall’ I also had 1 probability questions that said ‘the chances of team a and b winning is .15, if team a has a 60% chance what what is the chance team b will win on any given day’. I also had 2 simplification questions, kinda simple. I finished with 18 minutes left (no lie) and I legit only solved 12 questions. Don’t stress like I did just put in work.

Reading comprehension: So because I am enlisted right now this section was more simple, the rumors of it being dry are true, it’s dry as fuck but get used to it a lot of stuff in the navy instructions is dry. Didn’t study just did the damn thing.

MC: again a section I was originally stressing about, and the test had a few questions I just straight guessed on, but for the most part know that liquids pressure is the exact same throughout, know that waters pressure is .43psi per foot, know MA of levers(which is simple). Nothing really too crazy except the few I guessed on and I’m pretty sure I got em right because they I reasoned them out. Know basic physics Bernoulli’s, Charles, and properties of an airfoil.

PBM: I’m going to preface this by saying, I studied a total of 1 hour for all of these sections because I really didn’t want aviation rates but my CO is a helo pilot and told me to just try. Ok the dichotic listening test was simple, also I did the paper thing with the UAV portion and still didn’t do great on that portion haha. Also the targeting test mixed with the dichotic listening was intense, if you can hop on a simulator do it, or like play hella driving games on super high sensitivity to practice a steady hand. Either way it was just for fun for me.
 

Jordheim

Member
’ I also had 1 probability questions that said ‘the chances of team a and b winning is .15, if team a has a 60% chance what what is the chance team b will win on any given day’.

Anyone know a video on how to learn how to do these? From what you've said, probability is the only thing I'm iffy on. I can do basic probability like finding the chances of pulling a king or a red card out of a card deck. If i flip a fair coin three times what are the chances of get tails head tails, etc. This kinda stuff you mentioned. I haven't a clue how to do that yet.
 

Cbienaim

Member
Anyone know a video on how to learn how to do these? From what you've said, probability is the only thing I'm iffy on. I can do basic probability like finding the chances of pulling a king or a red card out of a card deck. If i flip a fair coin three times what are the chances of get tails head tails, etc. This kinda stuff you mentioned. I haven't a clue how to do that yet.
Khan academy has hella in-depth info on probability that’s where I learned it just type in combined probability and you’ll find it
 
Took the ASTB-E for the first time this past Tuesday...and I feel that I am obligated to share my experience, as everyone's gouge helped me so much along the way. I do not plan on retaking the test.

Score: 55 7/8/8

MST: I was most worried about this section and therefore spent the most time studying it. Mainly studied the "OAR Math Study Guide" from Kyle's ASTB study kit, along with Barron's Book. Lots of probability questions, D R/T, multivariable equations, simplifying equations, geometry, and percentages. I don't remember everything I had, but study and you'll be fine.

RCT: Other than answering the 60 practice questions in Barron's book, I did not study for this section explicitly. Not bad, especially if you're a good writer/reader.

MCT: Lots of pulley, gear, MA, and simple machine questions. I studied a decent amount for this and was pleased with the outcome. This section was the shortest for me, kicking me out about halfway through.

PBM:

UAV: Did the compass trick...Averaged about 1.5-2.3 seconds per answer. It felt like they asked me 60 questions, but I'm not sure as I was preoccupied. Missed one...Seriously practice this one and you'll be fine..It was fun to tear through the questions.

Dichotic Listening: Leaned my head to each respective ear, worked well. Make sure that your headphones are working correctly as mine had an issue that needed to be addressed. I'm sure this could have effected my score had it not been corrected.

Simulator: If you can keep your crosshairs on the target at all times, you are a god. I felt like I was doing an awful job, but did not give up. I felt that tensing my shoulders and limiting my body movements to my wrists as much as possible benefited me. Just don't give up on this. When they introduce the dichotic listening during this segment it gets hectic....but don't give in.

Glad to be here. Thanks for the help gentlemen.
 
Hello everyone, this is my first time posting on here. I just took the OAR (academic portion of ASTB-E) and got a 70, thanks to the awesome airwarriors community. Here is my experience, I hope it is helpful. At the bottom of the post you will find a link to my google study drive. This is a HUGE collection of all the study materials I found on this thread, in one place (credits to Kyle, Patrick, and all the others who put together these materials).

Math:
Questions I got that I’d never seen before/did not practice well enough:
  • Log equations- I studied logarithm properties and how to simplify logs, but I did not study how to solve log equations. Know how to do this. My question was something like: log3 [log8(log5)]= -1. Answers were whole numbers.
  • Number sequences- I got a question like: “What is the sum of these numbers? 1,2,3,4,5……..123.” I had no idea how to solve it. Just a heads up to study this.
  • Complex weighted average word problem: I practiced weighted averages, but got a question that was pretty complicated: “Jane is in a class where the three test scores are worth 60% of her grade, homework is 10%, final exam is 30%. Her homework score is 82. Her first two test scores are 70 and 75, and her final exam is 10 points less than her third test score. Her average grade in the class is ___ (I can’t remember the exact number). What was her final exam score?”
  • Arcs and chords: “A chord of 4 inches cuts across a circle, with an arc of 90 degrees. What is the diameter of the circle?”
Just to reaffirm the other users’ comments on here, there will be probability, D=RT, averages (including weighted averages), and shared work word problems (I didn’t get any but I know mixture word problems are common as well). Practice these well. I got a book on amazon that was just for word problems, which helped a lot (“Algebra Word Problems by Chris McMullen”).

Mechanical:
Questions I remember:
  • “A spring is attached to a wall with a weight at the end. The spring’s starting point is at A before it is compressed and then let go. It bounces out to point C before returning to starting point A. At what point is its elastic energy the greatest?” Answers were different points where the spring would be closer or further away from the wall.
  • Pulleys, isothermal temperature (remains constant), the arc of a ball being thrown (horizontal vs. vertical acceleration)
  • “A boat is perpendicularly crossing a river at a given speed, the river is flowing down at a given speed, at what speed is the boat moving?”
Reading:
  • Take your time with each question. Read the prompt carefully. I read it at least 2 times to makes sure I understood the relationships between the topics or subjects discussed. If the prompt says “x is the main objective of y”, make sure that the answer you pick does not change or alter this relationship. It must be exactly how the prompt said it is.
About the actual test system:
What I wish I knew:
For the mechanical comprehension section, I’d say quantity over quality is best when studying. Meaning: look over as MUCH information as you possibly can. Read every study guide on the drive posted below. The questions I got seemed to be quite random, so just do your best to ingest as much as you can instead of going super in depth on any particular subject.
For both math and mechanical: look at the airwarriors threads and the posts like mine where people share their experience and specific questions they got. I saw questions from the airwarriors thread on my test that I would NOT have known if I had just studied the guides and books.
#1 thing to know: This test is adaptive. This means that timing is not as important as in a “regular” paper-based test. Focus on quality over quantity. Completing 15 questions and getting most of them right is much better than completing 25-30 and getting a bunch wrong. I did not count how many questions I answered on each section, but I highly doubt that I completed the “full” amount. Take your time. However, make an educated guess if you’re sure you won’t be able to solve the problem within a reasonable time frame. Educated guess= solve backwards, or just apply whatever clues you can from matching the answer set to the problem.
Order of the OAR: If you were wondering, the order is 1. Math, 2. Reading, 3. Mechanical.
What does it mean if I “time out” or get “kicked out”?: I timed out on all my sections except maybe for the mechanical comprehension section (I may have had 1 or 2 minutes left). This means that the test does NOT necessarily kick you out because you’re doing well. It seems to be somewhat random (i.e. people who do well sometimes time out, and people who don’t do as well sometimes get cut short).
You will feel like you’re failing: saw multiple questions (4-6) that I had never seen before, even though I studied hard. Don’t panic- just make an educated guess and move on. You will be surprised that you did better than you thought at the end.
Quality over quantity: The test would seem to give me easier questions after a hard question, which made me feel like I must have gotten the last one wrong. If this happens- be extra careful with the next question because the test is adaptive, so each question you get wrong will make the computer give you an easier question. You don’t want to have a trend of wrong answers that will lower your score. Focus on getting them RIGHT, not getting a bunch answered in the allotted time.
BEST study materials: The study drive below includes enough material to keep you busy for weeks. Do not waste your money buying guides and books. Use the study guides, practice tests, flashcards, and links on the drive and augment that with videos on Khan Academy and Youtube, as well as searching online for specific topics you may struggle with. If you must, buy the Barron's book for a basic overview.
P.S. You don’t need a watch. Hover your mouse over the clock on the screen to see how much time you have left.

GOOD LUCK!

 

madman111

SNA Pro-Rec Y
Hey guys,

First time posting, in fact just took my first ASTB today. I plan to retake because the overall score wasn't the best, but I think I lost a lot on the emergency procedure. I wrote down the steps for each emergency but I think in the stress of the moment I confused which side of the fuel and power bar was min, neutral, or high. Could someone help reorganize which color correlates with which? I've tried looking up online but there are very few people with this confusion so I'm hoping for the best here.

Thanks
 

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Jordheim

Member
Math:
Questions I got that I’d never seen before/did not practice well enough:

  • Number sequences- I got a question like: “What is the sum of these numbers? 1,2,3,4,5……..123.” I had no idea how to solve it. Just a heads up to study this.

for those who are looking to learn how to solve arithmetic series sums; here is a video for you. I found it quite useful and taught myself in about 20 minutes.


for the other problems. I don't know how to solve them.
 
Hey guys,

First time posting, in fact just took my first ASTB today. I plan to retake because the overall score wasn't the best, but I think I lost a lot on the emergency procedure. I wrote down the steps for each emergency but I think in the stress of the moment I confused which side of the fuel and power bar was min, neutral, or high. Could someone help reorganize which color correlates with which? I've tried looking up online but there are very few people with this confusion so I'm hoping for the best here.

Thanks

Happened to me as well. If i remember correctly, Red means Max....(Green Means Good) and Yellow is low. Red = 100% Green = 50% Yellow = 0% / LOW
 

Jordheim

Member
Hey everyone I took the OAR today and passed it, barely. I got a 41. As an English major who never had to go above simple algebra. I'm perfectly happy with my score. Math was never my strongest subject. I don't plan to retest being the old age of 33. Its either they accept me or they do not. I'll go back to being a high school teacher if they do not.


Math section.
I had a lot of probability questions. Some examples are, There are 15 students in a class: 8 boys and 7 girls. If the teacher picks a group of 4 at random, what is the probability that everyone in the group is a boy? This was almost identical to Khan academy. I would study his material for these. I also got questions like. You're the first person at a casino table; what is the probability of getting an Ace out of a single card deck? I also got the typical marble question. I had a lot of complex DRT questions that can be found on kuta software infinite algebra 2. To be clear, these were not the ones on Kyle's ASTB, they were much more difficult. Here is a example question: Jose left the airport and traveled toward the mountains. Kayla left 2.1 hours later traveling 35 mph faster in an effort to catch up to him. After 1.2 hours Kayla finally caught up. Find Jose's average speed. This is from kuta sotware infinite algebra 2. I had order of operations questions that were quite difficult. Similar to the #1 question found HERE. I also had about 3 questions on square roots that asked me to simplify variables. I had one on quadratic equations and matrices. After the matrices I was kicked out with about 14 minutes left. I only solved 12 questions. I did not have any word work related problems and fractions. I did have what is the ares of a circle based off the circumference alone, and disruptive property questions (X+2)(X-3) = ??? very easy. I did have a arithmetic sequence question where i had to use Sn= N/2 (A1+ AN). The hardest questions I had was Log X Log questions. I do apologize I don't remember the actual question, but it was similar to the ones found on Kyle's ASTB study guide. so I recommend studying logs.


Reading Section
This was the quite difficult for me even as an English major. I have an undergraduate degree in English and a masters in TESOL(teaching English as a Second Language). These paragraphs are utterly confusing and poorly written. Whoever wrote these paragraphs needs to go back to school and learn how to write a paragraph without adding a bunch of fluff. I felt like 90% of these paragraphs had useless information and it became a game to find the useful sentence in the paragraphs. . Do not under estimate this section. There were several sections that I could easily argue had 2 correct answers based on the wording and verbiage used in the paragraph. For those who know the test, the auditor general of the navy is one primary example. My strategy for this was to read the answers and then read the paragraph out loud and using the mouse arrow as a guide.

The Mechanical Section
I want to be very clear on this section. There were only two questions that related to Holly's ASTB study guide and Kyle's study guide. Gas related to temperature and how far a weight needed to be to counter-act a weight on the other side. That is it. I believe i got a 41 due to this. I utterly bombed this section as it it had nothing to do with Charles' laws, Boyle's Law, or Bernoulli's laws. I didn't have a single pulley, gear, buoyancy, thermodynamics, Speed or velocity questions, boat vs river current question, and I did not have a single MA question. I did have a lot of ohm's law questions which is vaguely covered in the study guides mentioned. The two questions I remember verbatim are: What is the resistance of this circuit given the picture displayed? And if the temperature is doubled and the pressure is increased, what is the volume of the gas? Did it remain the same? double or quadruple?


I wish everyone success.
 

Arkrunner

Member
Hello, AirWarriors. Long time lurker and honorary first-time poster. Today I took the ASTB and scored 56 7/8/7 which is above what I expected! I am very proud of this score because I worked very hard to know this material forward and backwards. You can do the same!!! I studied for two months total. At least one day a week I spent all day studying (8-10 hours) as well as every night after work. I work full time, workout, and am a socially normal person : ) for the most part. Here’s one of my mottos: work as hard as you can to be confident in your abilities when it is time to test. That goes for any test: academics, running a race, presentations at work, etc. Alrighty here goes my ASTB debrief:

Studying:
Get a notebook for every section of the test to keep yourself organized. If there is a concept you are struggling with: practice, sleep for a full night, repeat. Resources: Read through EVERY page of AW starting back to 200. Barron’s Military Flight Textbook. GRE math problems. Khan Academy. Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Check your local library for this and other aviation practice test booklets. YouTube channel about everything aviation: Captain Joe. Attached are resources from fellow AirWarriors.

Test Day:
The APEX system was not working when I arrived to the recruiting center!!!! Miraculously it started working a couple hours later. My recruiter said they often fix server issues such as these within a couple hours. That being said: bring snacks and earbuds to keep your brain astb-ready in case this happens to you. Every portion of the test had a time limit and I completed as many questions as possible. I was never “kicked out” at random times.

Math Portion: Timed 40 minutes (?)
Here’s the deal. I am TERRIBLE at math, but hit this one of out the park. How? “Work your weaknesses.” I devoted a great amount of time to focusing on these concepts and stressed myself to be overly prepared on test day. The below appeared on my test:
--Simplifying complex fractions
--Exponents and square roots
--Solve for nth number in a series
--Find the average test score: what is needed on the 6th and 7th tests if Johnny wants an 82 average in his class, and he scored x y z on the first three tests, scored 2/3 of the average of those three tests plus 20 on the 4th test, and made 9/10 of the 4th test on the 5th test?
--Probability: if a pair of dice is rolled and a playing card is selected, what are the odds of rolling a value that adds to 8, and the odds of you selecting a heart?
--Man hours
--D=RT
--No logs. No matrices. No geometry.

Reading: Timed 40 minutes (?)
Very boring. Yikes! No passages about aviation or anything interesting. I about lost it during this section. Read aloud to yourself to stay focused.

Mechanical: Timed 20 minutes (?)
--Density and pressure
--Pascal’s principle
--Bernouilli’s Principle
--Which temperature is greatest: values in Celsius, Fahrenheit & Kelvin. Know the conversion formula.
--Newton’s Laws and outer space
--Balance weight on a seesaw
--No pulleys! Note: a stationary pulley = MA of 1. Movable pulley = MA of 2.
--DC vs. AC batteries/generators. No pictures of circuit systems.
--Gears
--Elastic energy is increased in a stretched and compressed spring
--Acceleration of two objects toward the ground is the same because gravity is 9.8 m/sec^2 on ALL objects.
--Football player kicks ball in the Center of Gravity. How does the ball respond in the air?
--Isothermal energy: itt remains constant.

PBM/Flight Portion
ANIT: 15 Minutes
The section could cover anything and everything, so do your best with AW posts as a guide. Rent or purchase a Pilot’s textbook and study the chapters on flight instruments, flight controls, principles of flight, and airport operations, or navigate the attached Navy Airman Guide.
--Primary control systems
--TBF Avenger was the primary torpedo during WWII
--Parts of a ship
--Aviation squadron designations
--VFR: 0 to 179 degrees is odd thousands + 500. 180 to 359 is even thousands + 500.
--Forces in banking flight
--The AIM aeronautical manual contains content on ATC procedures
--If altitude increases, speed of sound decreases
--Weight of gasoline

UAV
Watch the YouTube video and practice until it is muscle memory. During the test, you will be given the heading on a spatial image. The parking lot you are to select will be given audibly. You will select the correct answer by moving the mouse pad and selecting the image. This section was more difficult than expected. I held my compass (draw the compass) in my left hand and navigated selection with my right hand. I missed 4 and averaged 2.5ish seconds. Did about 20 selections. Could have done better and nerves caught me.

BIRV
There are no good answers. Just do your best. Here is a humorous example of a difficult question that has no right answer:
  • I like to start rumors about my coworkers.
  • I steal from my deaf neighbor.
Throttle & Stick
  • Throttle and stick: I felt terrible during this portion. Didn’t line up the plane and crosshairs much. I thought “Well, this is it. Looks like I’ll be back in 31 days. My dreams are over!” Well, I scored a 7/8/7 so obviously I did well! Be confident in yourself. You are not garbage. The test is intentionally difficult. Here’s how to practice: buy a HOTAS or practice with a friend’s. Practice with an inverted Y axis. Free game to download and play: War Thunder.
  • Dichotic listening: do not get trigger happy like I did. Made a couple of mistakes by working too fast. There is a free phone application called “iDichotic” that will help you prepare for the listening portion layout, but frankly the app way more difficult than the actual test.
  • Dichotic listening, throttle and stick: I did surprising well during this portion. Focus on listening #1!
  • Emergency Procedures: write them down!!! There are three total. Do them accurately. The exact procedures are a few AW pages back.
DONE DONE AND DONE. Study hard and have confidence in your abilities. Take it from someone who works twice as hard because I am twice as slow at learning difficult concepts: You can do this.

ASTB 56 7/8/7
Applying: SNA

 

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Arkrunner

Member
Oh yeah, another resource I used: Podcasts. Through the Podcasts app on my iPhone I listen to:

--The Fighter Pilot Podcast with Vincent Aiello
--The Professionals Playbook with Justin Lee

These are great resources to get advice from military aviation professionals, as well as technical perspectives on airframes from the pilots themselves.
 
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