It's an aptitude test dudes (and dudettes). There is no reason to nuke the thing. I know you feel a lot of pressure to do as well as humanely possible on it, as the grades do matter, but in theory, these are skills that you should already have in some capacity if you are going to start this line of work. I'm not saying that I have ever worked a timed word problem in the cockpit, but it is testing your basic mental math, your reasoning, and your understanding of very very basic physics, which are important abilities for any aviator. I'm sure there are folks who got crap ASTB scores and went on to do awesome in their careers, and I'm sure there were ASTB rockstars that failed out of flight school, but in general, I'd say that having a grasp of these concepts should be a given the day you come in the door of API. That is *I think* what this test is checking. Cue API instructor dogpile on me for swerving out of my lane, sorry in advance gents if this is BS.