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

Chris9191

New Member
The study gouge on here is the closest you'll find to the actual test questions. Barron's and Petersons both had really dumbed down questions that were like the beginning questions on the test, but since its adaptive, these were kindergarten compared to what comes later. Your AQR score and FOFAR score are most affected by the Math section, so its definitely important to understand all the concepts.

From the sounds of it you should be fine with most of the aviation knowledge, since it affects PFAR score the most, but I went in with the same mentality and some studying and still only scored an 8, so there is always more to learn.

Best of Luck!

Thanks for the reply!

I have found Kyle's ASTB Study kit so I am hoping that with help out some.
 

Austin-AJA

Member
Does anyone have a solid breakdown of what sections of the test effect what scores? I am taking in the hopes of applying for SNA and looking for info on what I should be focusing on most. For example do the sections in the OAR have an effect on the line scores and if so which ones? Thank you.
 

FormerRecruitingGuru

Making Recruiting Great Again
Does anyone have a solid breakdown of what sections of the test effect what scores? I am taking in the hopes of applying for SNA and looking for info on what I should be focusing on most. For example do the sections in the OAR have an effect on the line scores and if so which ones? Thank you.

That information isn't available. Also, unlike the ASVAB, you don't get "line scores" on the OAR. Simply a two digit score between 20 and 80...
 

Austin-AJA

Member
That information isn't available. Also, unlike the ASVAB, you don't get "line scores" on the OAR. Simply a two digit score between 20 and 80...

Thank you, I appreciate the reply but I guess what I was asking was do any of the sections of the OAR have an effect on the AQR/ PFAR/ FOFAR scores or are the tests completely independent of each other even though you still take both for a SNA application.
 

FormerRecruitingGuru

Making Recruiting Great Again
Thank you, I appreciate the reply but I guess what I was asking was do any of the sections of the OAR have an effect on the AQR/ PFAR/ FOFAR scores or are the tests completely independent of each other even though you still take both for a SNA application.

Two different tests/sections. Once you complete the OAR sections your OAR score has already been calculated and set,
 
I have everything I need for the next SNA/NFO board, but I am wondering if I should retake with 52 6/7/7 ?? Seeing people with 8's and a few 9's is making me feel very self-conscious lol. I have a solid GPA and flight experience but idk if it will make up for lack of 1 or 2 points on the ASTB.
Dont retake.... was selected just recently with a 49 6,7,7. I thi k you will be just fine
 

JHazz.117

New Member
Okay, thank you.

I found this in some Navy manual from 2015, but I can't source it, I just snipped the photo.
Taking the ASTB for the second time tomorrow after getting 60 5-5-5 the first time. Used Kyle's ASTB kit much more this time. Going into it, I regret not spending more time memorizing ANIT stuff. That's an easy way to improve your SNA score.
25006
 

mjb927

New Member
Scores: 56 6/7/7

Study Material:
Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests prep book
ASTB 2020-2021 Test Prep Book
Kahn Academy
Organic Chemistry Tutor
Kyles's ASTB Guide
Holly's ASTB Guide
FAA Handbook

Math:
Lots of word problems involving DRT, probability, average, how much time it'll take for 2 people to complete a task, and simplifying radicals.

My biggest recommendation for this section is to get the basics down pat. To be honest there were a good number of problems that didn't look exactly like the problems that I practiced. Do as many practice problems as you can and get very comfortable with them so that you know you'll get those ones right on the test. That way you can quickly answer those ones and spend more time working through harder ones.

Reading:
As everyone else has mentioned previously, this section is full of some dry material. Do your best to stay engaged and focused. Also, be sure to keep and eye on the timer. I actually timed out before I answered all the questions (maybe had only 1 or 2 more to go, though)

Mechanical:
Pulley systems, throw a ball and dropping a ball at the same time- which one hit's ground first (answer: they both hit ground at same time because horizontal motion doesn't affect rate of fall), mass of an object on the moon versus the Earth, how much force would be needed to lift an object in a pulley system, what happens to velocity in narrow section of venture tube, which point of a trajectory would have the greatest velocity, and one question.

I maybe had 1 question that involved actually calculating something...the rest was concepts. So be sure to study concepts.

ANIT:
I used the cram flashcard set, read the test prep books, and studied the FAA manual (see study guides in this thread for the highlighted sections).

Some examples of questions were what plane escorted bombers in WWII, who do the commanders of the carrier air wing report to, how aircraft carriers were modified to accommodate heavy aircraft such as the F-14, and a question "You're DME from the VORTAC, what's your issue?" The answer choices were in nautical miles not statute miles, in statute miles not nautical miles, in kilometers, and something about slope distance. I guessed and chose slope distance. I'm sure someone here that's smarter than I am can give the correct answer.

NATFI:
Just like everyone else says...these questions are strange. Pick the answer that best suites you and I'd suggest not overthinking it.

UAV Test:
I used the online UAV practice flashcards from pro profs....However, when it came to the real exam, the perspective of the parking lots differed from the simulator and it confused me at times. There were a few that I answered incorrectly and a few that took longer than 3 seconds to answer. For instance, they may have you heading 110 degrees (which is South East), but because the heading isn't directly between East and South (135 degrees), when you re-orientate your compass (using the UAV trick that everyone references) it sometimes is confusing what parking lot is correct.

Practice the UAV trick and do your best.

Dichotic Listening Test:
I used the "lean into the target-ear" method and I feel like it helped. I also took a piece of my scratch paper, drew a line down the middle, and labeled each side as "ODD" or "EVEN" with an arrow point to the respective sides.

Tracking & Emergency Scenarios Test:
As many people (especially those without much simulator experience say) this section can make you feel super incompetent.

The vertical and joystick tracking went relatively smoothly. The target jumps across the screen at varying speeds so it can be difficult to keep up with it. Additionally, the target is on a 2D plane and I moved the joystick in the wrong direction for UP/DOWN a few times even though I was prepared for the inverted axis.

Things started getting a little crazy when the dichotic listening was added back in. I focused on the dichotic listening as that was the new part. Honestly, I was probably "on-target" less than 20% of the time.

I wrote down the emergency scenarios, the knob positions, and what fingers corresponded to what knobs. When an emergency happened, I was able to quickly respond to it. Again, the tracking was the hard part here. I would focus on the joystick target and the vertical target would be way off and vice versa. After the three emergency scenarios, there's a short period of just tracking.


One other thing I'd like to mention is that I got myself a tutor from Varsity Tutors to prep for this. I served 6 years active duty as a Navy Officer (non-pilot) and am still in the Reserves. I had a decent amount of experience in anything involving nautical information but what really helped me was connecting with a 20+ year retired Navy Nuclear Officer (and if anyone is familiar with the Navy Nuke program, you'll know it's full of the smartest dudes and girls that the branch has) who tutors guys and girls in ASTB test prep (among other subjects). He found tons of extra study material for me to work through and helped me improve my understanding of concepts, speed of answering questions, etc.

In my opinion, it's good to be humble and ask for help in preparing for this test.

If anyone is interested in connecting with him, please direct message me and I'll make the introduction.

For all of you that are not prior service and have been selected out of your boards, enjoy the Navy experience. It will be the best decision you've ever made and will positively change your life forever!
 
Hello everyone, I took the OAR for the first time two weeks ago and am gunning for the April SWO board. I scored a 54. I spent the night before in a hotel cramming which gave me the worst headache I've had in years. Then my room's smoke alarm started beeping due to low battery at 1am (stopped after ~20 minutes). I ate a light breakfast and arrived at the testing location early.

Math Section: It's been about ten years since I last took a math class (in high school). I studied pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, and probability by blasting through Khan Academy courses starting about two weeks before taking the test (not enough studying, don't do this). I studied logarithms but never encountered a question on them, probably because the adaptive test knew it wasn't worth probing that deep. Overall I think guessed on ~1/3 of the math section, which made me feel dumb and even more stressed. I didn't use any of the equations they provided on the right-hand margin. I can't remember if I technically ran out of time on this section or if I was just spamming guesses toward the end and hoped I'd finish on time, but it was a near thing.

Reading Section: I didn't study for this but it doesn't look like many people study for it anyway. The questions were dry and very specific and the test even warns you that they're looking for answers that can be inferred only through the text and without any assumptions. I actually ran out of time here but I feel like I killed it, I never felt like I was guessing like in the math section. It's obvious to me that my performance here likely picked up the slack from my math section.

Mechanical Section: I spent two nights cramming basic physics concepts like mechanical advantage, velocity, Bernoulli's equation, Pascal's principle, simple circuits, etc. using Khan Academy and Googling. Only had maybe one or two questions that I had to do any calculations on, both mechanical advantage questions. I reviewed all simple machines the night before but was only given multiple questions on levers, no others. One question on Kelvin conversion, a few on kinetic/potential energy, no questions on circuits. I didn't run out of time on this section and guessed way less than the math section; almost all the questions were on concepts which is awesome.

I wanted a higher score but my preparation was terrible and I'm lucky I scored what I did. Though it mostly worked out fine in the end, my anxiety was through the roof before and during the test. If I have to retake it to improve my SWO application then I'll find some dedicated study materials/guides and work off them instead of Khan Academy as the video instructor takes forever to walk through problems.
 

Fable0027

New Member
Scores: 56 6/7/7

Study Material:
Barron's Military Flight Aptitude Tests prep book
ASTB 2020-2021 Test Prep Book
Kahn Academy
Organic Chemistry Tutor
Kyles's ASTB Guide
Holly's ASTB Guide
FAA Handbook

Math:
Lots of word problems involving DRT, probability, average, how much time it'll take for 2 people to complete a task, and simplifying radicals.

My biggest recommendation for this section is to get the basics down pat. To be honest there were a good number of problems that didn't look exactly like the problems that I practiced. Do as many practice problems as you can and get very comfortable with them so that you know you'll get those ones right on the test. That way you can quickly answer those ones and spend more time working through harder ones.

Reading:
As everyone else has mentioned previously, this section is full of some dry material. Do your best to stay engaged and focused. Also, be sure to keep and eye on the timer. I actually timed out before I answered all the questions (maybe had only 1 or 2 more to go, though)

Mechanical:
Pulley systems, throw a ball and dropping a ball at the same time- which one hit's ground first (answer: they both hit ground at same time because horizontal motion doesn't affect rate of fall), mass of an object on the moon versus the Earth, how much force would be needed to lift an object in a pulley system, what happens to velocity in narrow section of venture tube, which point of a trajectory would have the greatest velocity, and one question.

I maybe had 1 question that involved actually calculating something...the rest was concepts. So be sure to study concepts.

ANIT:
I used the cram flashcard set, read the test prep books, and studied the FAA manual (see study guides in this thread for the highlighted sections).

Some examples of questions were what plane escorted bombers in WWII, who do the commanders of the carrier air wing report to, how aircraft carriers were modified to accommodate heavy aircraft such as the F-14, and a question "You're DME from the VORTAC, what's your issue?" The answer choices were in nautical miles not statute miles, in statute miles not nautical miles, in kilometers, and something about slope distance. I guessed and chose slope distance. I'm sure someone here that's smarter than I am can give the correct answer.

NATFI:
Just like everyone else says...these questions are strange. Pick the answer that best suites you and I'd suggest not overthinking it.

UAV Test:
I used the online UAV practice flashcards from pro profs....However, when it came to the real exam, the perspective of the parking lots differed from the simulator and it confused me at times. There were a few that I answered incorrectly and a few that took longer than 3 seconds to answer. For instance, they may have you heading 110 degrees (which is South East), but because the heading isn't directly between East and South (135 degrees), when you re-orientate your compass (using the UAV trick that everyone references) it sometimes is confusing what parking lot is correct.

Practice the UAV trick and do your best.

Dichotic Listening Test:
I used the "lean into the target-ear" method and I feel like it helped. I also took a piece of my scratch paper, drew a line down the middle, and labeled each side as "ODD" or "EVEN" with an arrow point to the respective sides.

Tracking & Emergency Scenarios Test:
As many people (especially those without much simulator experience say) this section can make you feel super incompetent.

The vertical and joystick tracking went relatively smoothly. The target jumps across the screen at varying speeds so it can be difficult to keep up with it. Additionally, the target is on a 2D plane and I moved the joystick in the wrong direction for UP/DOWN a few times even though I was prepared for the inverted axis.

Things started getting a little crazy when the dichotic listening was added back in. I focused on the dichotic listening as that was the new part. Honestly, I was probably "on-target" less than 20% of the time.

I wrote down the emergency scenarios, the knob positions, and what fingers corresponded to what knobs. When an emergency happened, I was able to quickly respond to it. Again, the tracking was the hard part here. I would focus on the joystick target and the vertical target would be way off and vice versa. After the three emergency scenarios, there's a short period of just tracking.


One other thing I'd like to mention is that I got myself a tutor from Varsity Tutors to prep for this. I served 6 years active duty as a Navy Officer (non-pilot) and am still in the Reserves. I had a decent amount of experience in anything involving nautical information but what really helped me was connecting with a 20+ year retired Navy Nuclear Officer (and if anyone is familiar with the Navy Nuke program, you'll know it's full of the smartest dudes and girls that the branch has) who tutors guys and girls in ASTB test prep (among other subjects). He found tons of extra study material for me to work through and helped me improve my understanding of concepts, speed of answering questions, etc.

In my opinion, it's good to be humble and ask for help in preparing for this test.

If anyone is interested in connecting with him, please direct message me and I'll make the introduction.

For all of you that are not prior service and have been selected out of your boards, enjoy the Navy experience. It will be the best decision you've ever made and will positively change your life forever!
Thank you for the info! For the math section, did you study any of the material posted on here? If so, were there any questions you saw from air warrior guides on the test itself? Maybe not exact questions, but maybe variables are switched around?
 
Score: 60 8/8/8
First attempt without studying, I am not saying that to try to sound all big and bad (because I am not), just goes to show that if you are careful and focus you can do well. On questions that I did not understand the content for I just tried to think about it logically and there were a couple of questions where I worked backward from the answers.

2.78 GPA
21 Years old
Finance Degree
Pro-Rec SNA for 10 May 2020
 

mjb927

New Member
Thank you for the info! For the math section, did you study any of the material posted on here? If so, were there any questions you saw from air warrior guides on the test itself? Maybe not exact questions, but maybe variables are switched around?

I did study a lot of math questions I found on the study guides on here (Kyle’s and Holly’s). The best questions I found were on the OAR Math Study Guide document (again, this is within Kyle’s or Holly’s google drive folder). There are about 114 questions on the OAR Math Study guide and it’s broken down by category of problem (ie: probability, percentages, DRT, etc) so it is easy to see where your problem areas are and what you’re doing well on. I’d say about half or 3/4 of the questions I had on the test were problems I had seen before (different numbers obviously, though). The rest of them were ones that I had not seen before. The way I see it, do as many problems as you can so you can increase your chances of getting those quickly correct on the actual test. Then for the rest of them, you’ll have to take more time to see if you can identify how to set them up. Hope this helps!
 
Hello, Graduating in one year with BA in CS. Took AOR first time with no practice and got a 45. Not happy with my score, not used to having to answer questions in a timed matter so ended up guessing a large amount. Retaking it in hopefully a month so will be doing lots of studying.
 
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