What a waste of time and energy. The actual transfer of knowledge through getting an ATPL must be close to zero.
Reducing the syllabus to what is really important and needed for commercial flight ops and designing a modern lecture/course must be a much better option for all.
Snoopy agree and arguably is the FAA approach to the ATPL technical knowledge exam?
The faa atp is similar but on a smaller scale. I’m clicking through sheppards question bank currently..
It’s a few years since I did the FAA paper but I recall focus on practical M&B, Performance planning (using actual type charts ranging from Embraer to Boeing), high altitude emergency procedures, weather, NOTAMs – all quite practical and relevant. They churn the question bank at around 10-15% every three months or so. It might have benefited with more systems and principles of flight content.
You also have the oral exam which is quite focused.
The FAA oral exam is extra focused because the DPE has in front of him the written exam questions which you got wrong 
zuutroy wrote:
The optimal strategy is to just murder the question banks for endless hours. Pay almost no attention to the course material and just read the explanations…[…]
This works for any multiple choice kind of exam, imho. In Germany medical exams are mostly MC questions. If you want to pass the exams you have to just stupidly repeat the MC questions over and over again.
If you want to understand the topic you have to learn in a very different way (depending on your personal “learning type”), but understanding a topic will not necessarily help you to to ace an MC exam on that topic.
Case in point: I did worse at the “human factors” PPL exam than my fellow PPL students without medical training, because I didn’t bother with the questions before as I am supposedly an expert in that field… 
Does anyone know the lowest cost route to get “get signed off” to sit exams without having to buy the books, do class room?
PF
I really would not call going through these exams as fun and I am doing only the CPL(A) subset for the purpose of obtaining an FI rating.
Been wading through the books since December, fitting in studying around my day job, probably averaging 25-30 hours study each week.
Passed my first four exams in March and have another three booked mid-May. Hope to have all 13 done and dusted by end September.
The process I seem to find works for me is to go through the study materials and then go through the QB for the particular topic to see if I understand it. Once a complete subject has been completed I then go through the QB (Bristol) in its entirety and run through practice exams under “exam conditions” as exam technique is absolutely important with these.
A number of years ago these QBs were pretty much what you would see in the exams but EASA are adding circa 1,500 questions to the CQB each year and removing a similar amount. Also, there are new style “Quadrant” style questions, with CAA UK exams these are limited to type in number answers (they specify the number of decimal places required) or drop down menu options. Knowing the subject will help dividends.
Mass and Balance and Performance are more difficult now than they were a few years ago as you no longer get the CAP docs in full which contain the relevant safety factor requirements! These, together with Air Law are those I’m taking in two weeks time.
I am so thankful I have an FAA IR and therefore am exempt from the IR or ATPL exams by going down the CB-IR route which I would like to do eventually and also add an IRI to my licence.
If you decide to do these exams get yourself added to the Facebook group “ATPL Theory Students”, amazing feedback, advice and help on there!
