So as promised, I'll write about my ASTB experience. Scored 52 6/7/6. I have no real flight experience so to speak, with the exception of some basic lessons, so a good portion of my studying was reading the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook and the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Between these two, I felt that the majority of the required aerodynamics and aviation information was covered. I do have a strong personal interest in naval/aircraft history, so I was not too concerned with this part. As for everything else...
Math:
I'd say my best resource was Schaum's Outline for College Algebra (3rd edition). I felt that I got the best problem solving with this one, and it has many problems solved for you. It won't teach you math, but as long as you have a good understanding of the basics it will be a great review and exercise tool. Most of my issues are typical - keeping signs straight and the like. My questions were mostly algebraic word problems, in addition to some simple geometry and basic linear equation types. Be comfortable with fractional exponents; I had no logs or matricies. Like many others I used several other study guides - Accepted, Barrons, Arco, but none really seem to capture the word problems. Just when I thought I had a handle, they figured out a new twist...Overall, I felt like I could have studied much less and performed similarly - I may retake, but unsure just yet. Still need to speak to the recruiter about it (he was not present when I took the exam).
Reading:
This is usually my strong suit, so I didn't feel I had too much of a problem. The reading can be technical and dry, but just try hard to stay focused. I would glance at the answer options as I was reading and try to eliminate options based on clear contradictions. The best overall strategy that I feel worked was eliminating wrong answers first.
Mechanical:
Not as technical as I expected - much more theory rather than actual calculations. 2 questions on electricity. I have basic electronics experience from building electric guitar circuits, and this actually sufficed for me. Potential/kinetic energy as expected; know how to apply Newton's laws; Bernoulli's principle, which I felt was more or less the entire section. Oddly though, not a single pulley question. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised - 52 isn't so hot, so I clearly was missing some things along the line.
NAFTI:
Someone else said it before - choose the lesser of two evils. Along the lines of...Which describes you better? "I don't work well with others" or "I often talk back to my supervisors". I literally laughed out loud about halfway through. I've never felt so narcissistic and incompetent, and fully likely to blame others for my mistakes.
Naval/Aviation Information:
Felt like I got through this section easily. Know your basic boating anatomy (transom/freeboard/draft for example). First manned plane to fly supersonic? Wingnuts will know this off the top. The study guides available on this site I feel have a pretty good basic info/dates section for the aviation part. I have been reading that there seem to be more questions on pre tri-service designations, as well as some WWII info. This part all in all went by in less than 10 minutes I think.
UAV:
I felt that I would have this part down better. Make liberal use of the unlimited practice if you need. However, I got used to the headings given in the practice, and they gave different headings in the actual test. So be prepared for anything - on more than one occasion I realized my mistake as I clicked the adjacent lot.
PBM:
I didn't think I had too much trouble with dichotic listening. Throttle the plane, fine. Stick - a bit weird since the fore/aft axis was inverted. I guess it's set up to work similar to the throttle within a 2 dimensional plane (fore is climb, aft is descend)? I grew up playing quite a bit of flight simulator, so the inverted part was a bit painful. Both at the same time - certainly felt humbled. Both with dichotic listening - at one point in the middle all I heard was clicking, the stick clanking, and my repeated use of choice words. The door was closed, so I hope no one important heard. The emergency scenarios are pretty straight forward. I had the scrap paper so I wrote them down. There was no test session for this, just jump in. The program seemed to give plenty of time to execute the procedures.
By the end, I figured I might as well walk out, and that I had no business being there. The officer processor did mention that the scores a similar to what he's been seeing submitted as of recent for SNA guys, so that gave me some hope - but I feel like I'm reading differently on AW. Who knows, maybe he's just trying to let me down easy... I'm not opposed to retesting, and only feel that I would benefit. The questions is, given the rest of my application, will bumping it up a few points really change the package? Then again, if I know I can do better, why not? Will need to discuss this one with the recruiter sometime soon.
That's all I have for now - PM me for any questions.
Math:
I'd say my best resource was Schaum's Outline for College Algebra (3rd edition). I felt that I got the best problem solving with this one, and it has many problems solved for you. It won't teach you math, but as long as you have a good understanding of the basics it will be a great review and exercise tool. Most of my issues are typical - keeping signs straight and the like. My questions were mostly algebraic word problems, in addition to some simple geometry and basic linear equation types. Be comfortable with fractional exponents; I had no logs or matricies. Like many others I used several other study guides - Accepted, Barrons, Arco, but none really seem to capture the word problems. Just when I thought I had a handle, they figured out a new twist...Overall, I felt like I could have studied much less and performed similarly - I may retake, but unsure just yet. Still need to speak to the recruiter about it (he was not present when I took the exam).
Reading:
This is usually my strong suit, so I didn't feel I had too much of a problem. The reading can be technical and dry, but just try hard to stay focused. I would glance at the answer options as I was reading and try to eliminate options based on clear contradictions. The best overall strategy that I feel worked was eliminating wrong answers first.
Mechanical:
Not as technical as I expected - much more theory rather than actual calculations. 2 questions on electricity. I have basic electronics experience from building electric guitar circuits, and this actually sufficed for me. Potential/kinetic energy as expected; know how to apply Newton's laws; Bernoulli's principle, which I felt was more or less the entire section. Oddly though, not a single pulley question. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised - 52 isn't so hot, so I clearly was missing some things along the line.
NAFTI:
Someone else said it before - choose the lesser of two evils. Along the lines of...Which describes you better? "I don't work well with others" or "I often talk back to my supervisors". I literally laughed out loud about halfway through. I've never felt so narcissistic and incompetent, and fully likely to blame others for my mistakes.
Naval/Aviation Information:
Felt like I got through this section easily. Know your basic boating anatomy (transom/freeboard/draft for example). First manned plane to fly supersonic? Wingnuts will know this off the top. The study guides available on this site I feel have a pretty good basic info/dates section for the aviation part. I have been reading that there seem to be more questions on pre tri-service designations, as well as some WWII info. This part all in all went by in less than 10 minutes I think.
UAV:
I felt that I would have this part down better. Make liberal use of the unlimited practice if you need. However, I got used to the headings given in the practice, and they gave different headings in the actual test. So be prepared for anything - on more than one occasion I realized my mistake as I clicked the adjacent lot.
PBM:
I didn't think I had too much trouble with dichotic listening. Throttle the plane, fine. Stick - a bit weird since the fore/aft axis was inverted. I guess it's set up to work similar to the throttle within a 2 dimensional plane (fore is climb, aft is descend)? I grew up playing quite a bit of flight simulator, so the inverted part was a bit painful. Both at the same time - certainly felt humbled. Both with dichotic listening - at one point in the middle all I heard was clicking, the stick clanking, and my repeated use of choice words. The door was closed, so I hope no one important heard. The emergency scenarios are pretty straight forward. I had the scrap paper so I wrote them down. There was no test session for this, just jump in. The program seemed to give plenty of time to execute the procedures.
By the end, I figured I might as well walk out, and that I had no business being there. The officer processor did mention that the scores a similar to what he's been seeing submitted as of recent for SNA guys, so that gave me some hope - but I feel like I'm reading differently on AW. Who knows, maybe he's just trying to let me down easy... I'm not opposed to retesting, and only feel that I would benefit. The questions is, given the rest of my application, will bumping it up a few points really change the package? Then again, if I know I can do better, why not? Will need to discuss this one with the recruiter sometime soon.
That's all I have for now - PM me for any questions.