loco wrote:
It’s the pressure at the airfield (QFE) reduced to sea level using current temperature conditions, as opposed to QNH which is same but reduced using ISA conditions. It’s used by meteorologists rather than pilots.
In other words, QFF is the sea level pressure you would see on a synoptic chart.
GA_Pete wrote:
EASA refuses to release the questions bank so the best you can do is use a third party QB which is mostly made up, of the best attempt at remembering the question after the exam and sending it in by somone having just taken the test. This leads to confusion and errors.
I have no proof but am convinced that at least one online question bank is a leak rather than student’s notes. The accuracy is shocking.
Loco wrote:
The accuracy is shocking.
I would say, not in my experience.
The original JAA ATPL QB was released under FOIA, many years ago, and I doubt that all the questions would have been overhauled. Search here for “freedom” and there is a sort of reference there.
It is also easy enough to do what the FTOs used to do before the QB was released: get students who sit the exams to remember just one question each, and write it down immediately they leave the exam room. In fact it is not that hard to write it down while still in the room…
The prohibition on making notes is actually unfair because the “lesser” exam subsets e.g. the JAA/EASA IR, the CBIR, etc, are not supposed to contain jet type questions. But how can you appeal a dodgy question if you aren’t allowed to write it down? You can do it only in the exam room but then you have massive peer pressure to not stir up trouble. But if you pass you don’t care anyway because you won’t be sitting that crap ever again in your whole life (unless you let the IR lapse for > 7 years). It’s a catch-22.
The current format is everything is online.
You are not allowed your own pen/pencil/paper.
If you need to write, you have to use the back of the sign-in sheet, or ask for paper during the exam.
Everything is collected from you when you leave.
All items such as calculator (only 3 approved models) cases and CR3 cases must be on the floor throughout.
On 1 exam I wanted to comment but as I ran out of time I didnt get a chance. Every exam I have done has has questions outside of my profile.
My memory is so poor I could only remember details of a straightforward question which hopefully I will have done and not be concerned with.
Does this mean you sit in front of a computer?
That is how the FAA writtens were always done. I did the PPL in 2004, IR in 2005, CPL in 2006. All with a computer.
Yes, you share the room and all have a desk and computer. You log in with given details and sit the appropriate exam independently from those around you who could be sitting any subject.
The format is very similar to the questions bank but the subtle differences can trip (ME) up.
Just a typical but not word perfect example would be where you have, for example several symptoms for something like Hypoxia.
After reading the study material ( which I fail to retain) you see relevant questions on the QB and unfortunately effectively recognise the several instances of the example question. Often answering 1 or 2 symptoms. Which is useful knowledge.
Then in the exam, worded differently enough to need to read it twice, it asks for four symptoms.
At this point multiple choice can help, or be your enemy as you definitely remember 3 but are now confronted with two choices that contain the 3 and a (now for me) trip up suitable looking wrong answer.
Obviously it shows I’m not as good as they want me to be. I get that, I’m not as sharp as I was and I wasn’t very academic anyway. However if I was so sure to need to be solid on 4 or 5 symptoms I would have been, but in some way the QB can be unhelpful.
I’m not blaming the QB, and I accept I need to be better but it does cause me some frustration as it feels unnecessarily tricky rather than useful knowledge building.
I’ve worked so hard on other subjects I’ve now displaced so much possibly useful stuff.
Pehaps that should mean I’m not up to the task.
Pehaps that should mean I’m not up to the task.
Of sitting exams, perhaps. Of flying, there’s probably no connection 
MedEwok wrote:
Still, the quota of failed exams is very low because med students are absolute gods at hammering MC questions over and over after 5 years of doing so throughout the course.
Coming from a technical university (now watered down to a general kindergarten style “feel good” nonsense university, but that’s another story), it was officially spoken that the main thing student learned was to learn new stuff, lots and lots of it, and learn it fast. An analogy often used, in a funny sense, was it was similar to trying to drink all the water coming from a fire hose
Now, about 30 years after graduation, it is all too obvious that the ability to learn tons of new stuff fast, is the single most important ability any engineer can have. Of course, the ability to use the acquired information is essential, it’s just that you cannot use something you don’t have. It is a two step process, and how well a person functions in real life doing real work, cannot be tested at a school. I guess it’s a similar thing to medical doctors. Knowledge is essential, to acquire it, to remember it fast and efficient, and lots and lots of it. How a doctor functions in real life is determined by dozens of other factors, but the ability to learn is the foundation for everything.
With online search engines, AIs and automated expert systems, this ability is changed somehow, augmented beyond belief sometimes, but that is also another story. It’s actually a show on TV where 3 normal persons using google compete with 3 real doctors (with no google) trying to find the disease a person has. A bit funny actually.
What I’m trying to say, is that exams will never be a test of how well a person functions in his job. That’s not the idea, and it has never been so. What is tested is:
From a real life point of view, exams always have a high degree of pure nonsense. What is the purpose of solving stupid made up puzzles, that are a) solved by millions before you and b) would never even happen in real life?
ATPL theory may very well be garbage for all I know, and the exams as well. But, when sitting in the back of a 737, I sure like to have pilots that:
LeSving wrote:
aviator behind the stick
I.e. a heavy drinking ex drug smuggler
Someone I used to know was one half of a set of twins. As children they were part of a scientific study on identical twins, which included each doing multiple choice IQ tests and comparing the results. A monkey was used as the control, and the monkey consistently got higher marks than the boys He was an Oxford-graduate university professor so I guess the tests meant nothing.
My ex-airforce friend said some of the RAF exams were full of irrelevance e.g. how many fan blades a particular engine had, and his CPL was just as bad. He also said that different JAA countries were given different subjects to write questions for the questionbank, and you could tell from the way they were written. The only one I remember is Navigation was from Germany because all the questions were based around Munich(?) where Lufthansa does its training.
Writing questions isn’t easy – you have to start by asking yourself what knowledge you’re testing, how you’ll test it, and how you’ll know if the candidate has satisfactorily answered it. Also to do it fairly, and so that e.g. the question wording isn’t leading (‘do you agree that’), using double negatives, trick questions etc). With enough data question-setters should be able to work out how easy or hard questions are by how often they’re answered correctly, or if one wrong answer is more prevalent than the others. It should be a continuous exercise to improve the questions, but I guess this isn’t happening. Bloom’s taxonomy is a great place to start:
