ILS27R
Before commenting on the value of feedback books, I must make a statement of interest. As the author of two such books (and currently working on the third), I have an interest in their success.
Some students appear to view feedback as some kind of shortcut to passing the exams. Put simply, they imagine that by learning the answers to a limited number of feedback questions, they will be able to answer the questions that they encounter in their own exams. Although this approach might be successful with the FAA system, it is unlikely be with the JAA exams. There are simply too many questions that may be asked. Looking further ahead, even if this method were successful, it would hardly add much to the ability of the student when qualified.
To pass the examinations and form the necessary foundation of knowledge to develop into an effective commercial pilot, it is necessary to do two things. These are:
a. Acquire a sufficiently detailed knowledge and understanding of the subjects.. .b. Develop the ability to analyse and answer a wide range of multi-choice questions under exam conditions.
. .Neither of these can be achieved by learning a list of questions and answers. But this does not mean that feedback questions have no place in the learning process. By practicing with realistic questions, on a continuous basis throughout the course, students can develop both the fundamental knowledge and the question answering skills required.
All of the schools collect feedback questions and distribute them to students during the consolidation phase of their courses. Although this process clearly assists students in preparing for their examinations, I believe it to be flawed in two ways. Firstly, if the students receive the feedback lists only in the final stage of their courses, they are unable to benefit from the continuous use described above. I am sure that a great many students can recall that sinking feeling during their consolidation training, when they suddenly realised just how much they still had to do during the final two weeks before the examinations. Had they been given the feedback earlier, and used it as an integrated part of their training, they would have been far better placed to make proper use of it.
Secondly, the feedback lists produced by individual schools, rarely include full written explanations of why any given answer is correct and why the other three are incorrect. This often leaves students with the awful feeling that the selected answer is in fact wrong.
As stated above, I have produced two books. These are based on student feedback gathered from the widest possible range of sources. The first of the books deals with Principles of Flight, whilst the second deals with Aircraft Performance. I am currently working on one dealing with Instruments & Electronics. Each book contains more than 1000 questions, answers and most importantly of all, explanations. Each also includes a list of key facts, formulae and shortcuts for commonly asked mathematical questions. The books are updated regularly as the feedback knowledge base grows.
Whilst it can never be guaranteed that any book contains all of the questions that might be asked, every effort has been made to make these as comprehensive as possible. In the case of Aircraft Performance for example, the book was completed last Friday afternoon (25 January). On Saturday morning, I received 25 questions reported to have been in the December 2001 examination. On comparing these with the book, I found that slightly modified versions of 24 of these questions were already included.
I note that your profile does not include an e-mail address. If you send it to me on
[email protected] I will send you a sample of material from the POF book. You can then assess whether or not it is likely to be useful to you. It is in MS Word format, so the diagrams might be corrupted if you are using another application. They are however correct in the book.