Passed PPL theory exam (finally)

[aplund]

After an extended duration (due to work/family/other commitments), I finally booked the PPL exam and sat it yesterday. Ended up with a pretty respectable 97%, so it was clearly time for me to sit it.

 

Just a few comments:

 

• Make sure you take charts into the exam. They are too stingy to give you relevant copies like Bob Tait does in his book. I thought I'd get a workbook like what is available for download with extracts of the WAC. This isn't the case and they had a question about the Bourke WAC and I only had the WAC for my area. I managed to figure out the question from the PCA I had. There weren't too many choices and it involved road and train lines between towns as navigational reference points.
   
   
  
• You probably don't need to take in the whole CASR, CAR, CAO and AIP book that you are permitted, but if you have them then why not? The VFRG and ERSA is a must. There was a question on a restricted area and without the bits and pieces in the ERSA you'd be up the creek. I was pretty confident with most questions, but there were many that you can double check in the VRFG quickly just by looking up the index.
   
   
  
• I paid for the Bob Tait online practice exams and they were well worth it. I reviewed my attempts of the practice exams the morning before the exam and that we extremely useful.
   
   
  
• I spent all but the last ten minutes of the 3.5 hours in the exam. I double/triple checked everything and made sure to check carefully for particular wordings. There are a few multiple point questions which I checked many times. There is also a "mark" you can put against questions. I put down quite a few marks initially against things I wasn't 100% sure of. When I checked against the materials I had, I removed the mark. At the end, I was left with about a dozen marked questions for which I still wasn't 100% sure of.
   
   
  
• The wording of most questions is appalling. They are often vague and imprecise. The "invigilator" I had said something like this at the beginning and that he was very sorry but he couldn't help in that circumstance. The strategy I took was to look for words that seemed most memorable or exactly matched something in the VFRG even if I wasn't sure it was exactly what they meant. If there is only one option like that, then you're set, otherwise you'd have to rule out options in other ways.
   
   
  
• Not all questions are multiple choice. But the ones that aren't seem to just ask you to enter in integer values (e.g. a minimum overfly altitude or weight of a given volume of avgas).
   
   
   
  
• Don't drink lots of water just before going to the exam. 3.5 hours is a long time. There is a permitted toilet break after a period of time has elapsed, but I wouldn't want to be busting to go before that. It would be quite distracting.
   
   
  
• You never find out which questions you got wrong. You just get a, cheerfully named "Knowledge Deficiency Report". In my case, I can guess which ones they were, but if you get a mark in the 70s, I'm not sure how you'd know.
   
   
  

 

 

Anyway, very happy with the result and on to the next task towards a PPL.

 

 

[Pearo]

97% is an awesome result mate, well done.

 

 

[Romeo Juliet Whiskey]

Congrats...Top effort! And thanks for the tips

 

 

[facthunter]

Preparation increases your luck. Planning prevents particularly poor performance. Sorry to hear the questions are poorly worded. Guessing something by process of least bad and trying to fathom what "they" might be looking for, isn't the way to set exams . Does it help to say it's been that way for a long time.? I think I know the answer to that one. Good result.. I remember leaving 50 minutes before the allocated time. I started checking and it wasn't helpful. I don't recommend that to everyone, but it's because you CAN easily read too much into the question. If you read the question CAREFULLY, and I emphasise that, and then straight away pick the answer, it can have a clarity to it Nev

 

 

[aplund]

Preparation increases your luck. Planning prevents particularly poor performance. Sorry to hear the questions are poorly worded. Guessing something by process of least bad and trying to fathom what "they" might be looking for, isn't the way to set exams . Does it help to say it's been that way for a long time.? I think I know the answer to that one. Good result..

I have no idea why they have really silly questions like they do. A cursory proof read, without the context of the legislation or VFRG, would make it clear that there are ambiguities. I'm not sure how these questions are set, but many seem to have not gone through any review at all.

 

Having said all that, I'm talking about 3 or 4 questions in 55. I wasn't awfully stressed out during the exam, but I could imagine people who would be and having poorly worded questions would make things in that situation much harder than they need to be.

 

I remember leaving 50 minutes before the allocated time. I started checking and it wasn't helpful. I don't recommend that to everyone, but it's because you CAN easily read too much into the question. If you read the question CAREFULLY, and I emphasise that, and then straight away pick the answer, it can have a clarity to it Nev

That's fair enough. If your brain has shut down, then there isn't much use going through things again and you're more than likely to make things worse in that situation.

 

I understand the temptation on review to oscillate between possible answers. But I think if you sit down and do the Bob Tait online practice exams beforehand, and realise that this is happening when you do them and try and fix it, then you can take that experience in with you.

 

I'm no stranger to exams. I've completed a dual university degree and an honours year. I would have sit over 50 exams (mid-semester and finals) during that time. It was quite clear in that room that I was the least stressed out person. (Though I was the only PPL person it seems). Being as relaxed as possible before helps with keeping your mind focused for long periods of time during the exam.

 

 

[GraemeK]

I sat my PPL exam with ASL - went in with everything including recommended WAC's and calculator (non-programmable, bought especially for the purpose) only to discover that they provided copies of the WAC's and a calculator. Agree with aplund that VFRG/ERSA are a must - also make maximum use of the material you're allowed, look up anything you're not absolutely 100% sure of, you've got plenty of time.

 

I was expecting some interesting 1:60 nav stuff, and sure enough there was a question that looked like it would need some of that but (after wasting time plotting lines on the chart and doing some 1:60 calculations) it turned out to be much simpler than that! Good reason to read the question properly before jumping in!

 

Like aplund, I spent pretty much the whole allotted time - the last 30 minutes or so going back through my answers. And just as well, because I found one answer I couldn't reconcile to my calculations, I'd marked the wrong box. And nearly destroyed a perfect score!

 

Having said that, quite a few left after a couple of hours or so - just proving you have plenty of time so no need to rush.

 

 

[ben87r]

I get soo annoyed with the ASL exams trying to trick you into the wrong answer, its a lazy mans way of testing. The wording is horrid and doesn't seem to be getting any better. Things like "The IAS decreases but FF reduces" or "Which answer best describes" followed by 4 answers that are not the correct answer so you need to find the most/least correct.

 

 

[Pearo]

They are not ASL exams, they are CASA exams. Does not matter where you go they are all the same. I did my PPL test with Flight One. Redcliffe Aero Club now do it also. Flight One provided copies of charts to me, but from memory some materials had an extra fee. Like Aplund, all I had was the VFRG and ERSA which covered off most material.

 

Applud's score is one of the highest pass marks I have heard of to date. I got 88% but I did not spend as much time on it. I think I was done in about an hour and a half. Any more time would have been a waste for me.

 

Bob Tait's exams are the best resource in my opinion, most of the Casa questions were more or less the same. As a bonus, students of Bob Tait (like me!) pass on info about questions that were not covered in his syllabus so that he can include that in future training and practice tests.

 

Next test for me is IREX. Welp... Started the study, going to do the Bob Tait course also.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Congratulations Aplund,

 

I was pretty well lost on the acronyms (three pages,like YBAF)

 

I could have wrote more but 20" (minutes) looking up acronym took its toll on my meager brain cells, good job I didn't throw away the old paper dictionary.

 

spacesailor