Hardest ATPL subjects to master.

[jack schidt]

Hello everyone,

I am curious as to what subjects people find the hardest to study/pass in exams. I know many are not enjoying Perf A, Loading seems to give some people problems and what about Nav or Met?

If you have the time, I would appreciate it if you would reply with the 3 or more topics you are finding or found hardest when studying the ATPL listing in the following format (cut paste this if needed).

Hardest subject is .... Reason complexity or time required to understand or dislike of topic
Second Hardest is .... Reason complexity or time required to understand or dislike of topic
Third Hardest is........ Reason complexity or time required to understand or dislike of topic

Considerations for your answer could be due to the length of time required to study the topic or the complexity of the subject and the need to understand it fully.

Many thanks.

Years ago I made a survey here to show a bar chart, I don't think the site has the ability to do that anymore unless I am mistaken.

[paco]

We find that people have an impression of the difficulty of the subject by the way they are taught. Once I demonstrate that a lot of questions in Nav can be solved without calculating anything, suddenly it becomes a lot easier. For us, feedback indicates that POF is the most difficult, followed by AGK (especially electrics) and, for fixed wing, performance, because of its links with POF. Helicopter performance is much more straightforward.

[RedBullGaveMeWings]

General Navigation, Principles of Flight, Meteorology and Aircraft General Knowledge (Electronics) are quite a bit hard but not impossible to master.

[chrisbl]

Different people react differently to the exams.


I found navigation relatively easy and finished it early, AGK I found tedious probably because I am not mechanically minded PoF was in between, the others were OK. Met was a pleasure but that's again because I am genuinely interested in Met anyway so I was a bit like a pig in sh1t with Met.

[keith williams]

I would say that the main factors in determining which subjects appear to be difficult, are the attitude and interests of the student.

Students who are good at memorizing facts will find Air law very easy. But those who feel the need to understand the why and wherefore of a subject usually find Air law very tedious, so they simply witch off.

Those who like mathematics and physics are likely to be very interested in subjects like POF, PERF, AGK and MET. But those who have a morbid fear of all things technical are likely to be overwhelmed by these subjects.

[LastMinuteChanges]

Gen. Nav and Met were the hardest subjects for me to master. As above, if you are capable of memorising large swathes of information, Systems and Air Law, as well as IFR and VFR Comms shouldn't be an issue.

Gen. Nav itself was as much about understanding the concepts inside and out, as it was finding time to revise it sufficiently, certainly when the concepts used in that subject are much removed from aviation on the line today. Whereas, subjects like IFR Comms and Air Law for me were much easier, given their pertinence to flight - I don't go a day without referencing something from those two subjects.

Hardest subject is: Gen. Nav
Second Hardest is: Instruments & Navigation
Third Hardest is: Flight Planning & Performance

[maximus610]

For me was Pof, Met and Gen Nav.

[average-punter]

I found the hardest to be POF and Performance, mainly because I found the concept to hardest to understand and my weak understanding of POF did not aid Performance! I managed to pass both fortunately.

The ones I found easiest (excluding comms) was Air Law, I thought it was a bunch of fairly simple facts that just had to be memorised. I wrote facts on record cards and tested myself every day which seemed to work well.

I also enjoyed GNAV as I found that you had to learn concepts that you could apply to many situations rather than learning 20 facts and possibly being asked one. People mention that GNAV is tight for time, which it is, but Paco has hit the nail on the head - a quick diagram often reveals the answer in GNAV without having to do any calculations.

[P40Warhawk]

AGK was only Electrics bit hard , but further quiet doable.

POF is a hard one, but somehow Performance is scored much better.

GNAV is what Paco said. Drawing diagrams. Its very easy and quick. I did not calculate any of the Polarstereographic questions. Lambert, mercator thing also not. Just drawing it. Because pure calculating takes WAY to much time.
I also started first with those W/V questions , cross wind calculations. Thats already almost half of all the questions.

At the end I still had left very much time and scored above 90.

MET is also not hard. Read and understand it, and logical thinking. But also visualizing coriolis for example.
What happends with wind during day. Clockwise , counterclockwise etc. N S Hemisphere. Trade winds.

Airlaw / OPS etc. Those are just putting a lot of facts in your head. And make tricks for yourself to remember those facts. Nothing to understand about.

Good Luck.

[Bearcat F8F]

This is so subjective. Everyone has their own nemesis.

I finished my last ATPL exam a few days ago.

You can split everything into 2 groups: Group 1) Which subjects are difficult to study/ understand, and Group 2) Which exams are the most challenging.

To study I think universally everyone is split between either Met or Gen Nav. Most people struggle with those two.

Personally, I found Flight Planning to be the most challenging exam. To study it's very easy but in the exam you are pressed for time and there are plenty of questions which can trick you. I actually scored 100% in this exam but I still maintain that it was the most challenging exam out of all of them. For me at least. Everyone is different.

[chrisbl]

Just to add on General Navigation, I would endorse doing the diagrams and where possible resolve them into right angle triangles.
One angle is always 90 degrees, the question gives you one of the other two angles.
Then its just common sense.


But then if you like trigonometry you are in clover.

[cavok_flyer]

Flight Planning, followed by Flight Planning, and finally Flight Planning. Still hate it... :suspect: Loved OPS and Air Law. Maybe the years of learning golf rules helped.