Reasons for failing ATPL exams

[WX Man]

I'd be interested to know from instructors why they believe most people fail ATPL exams. I'm not used to failing exams, mainly because I work damn hard, but the stats of PoF scare me. It sounds like the exam is damn near impossible.

Is it maybe because some people sitting the exam are only just ready to do it, or is there something wrong funamentally with the way the exams are set? NB: not just PoF, we're talking everything from HPL to Nav here.

[VFE]

Not an instructor here but as someone who has sat them I would love to take this opportunity to have a winge and put forward my views on your question as someone who has sat exams at an integrated school and also solo via the modular route. Besides, I would say the instructors are not as well placed to comment on this as the students who sit the exams themselves. .http://www.blastwaves.com/motorforum/images/smiles/eusa_snooty.gif

The majority fail the exams due to lack of work. Fact. But, sometimes the questions are simply worded in such a way as to trip a person up because they did not fully understand exactly what the question was asking. Number of reasons for this but the main one is the translation does not convert to English too well.

The POF matter currently in debate is a weird one. Seems like there're areas coming up that are either not in the sillybus or that they are asking such oblique questions that one would not even consider during studying.

At integrated school where I sat 6 ATPL's and then left to go modular there was a broad mix of students and abilities. We all studied day in day out together and all sat the exams together. We all knew each others weaknesses and strong points. Some guys would study just about every hour god sent and others would be in cruise mode, hoping it would all fall into place during the last few weeks prior to exams. Some passed all (and by this point we all knew who was gonna pass all and who was gonna struggle) and some passed none. Others worked hard and still only passed a couple.

The main reasons for failure as I see it are lack of work and a lack of confidence in believing you know the answer. Lack of motivation, personal distractions, lack of suitablity to the study surroundings and, feeling comfortable in your study surroundings are the main areas that effect your success. One cannot legislate for daft questions in the exam but by and large you only get about 3 or 4 in say, a 100 question exam that are beyond any reasoned logic.

The POF deal seems an exception against the rule and I hope something is sorted soon for those who have to sit it. POF when I sat it had an awful lot of high speed flight questions in it. Nice to know that JAA feel we'll all end up flying supersonic jets but a little daft to make it worth 45% of your overall exam.

Sometimes it's like http://www.blastwaves.com/motorforum/images/smiles/eusa_wall.gif learning all the stuff required to ensure you pass but POF aside, hard work, a good set of study notes, comfortable surroundings to learn in and motivation when you feel drained will hopefully see you through. http://www.blastwaves.com/motorforum/images/smiles/eusa_pray.gif

VFE.

[FlyingForFun]

Can't think of much to add to what VFE says. Yes, some questions are badly worded, not on the syllabus, and so on. Hopefully you'll see them in the feedback and be prepared for some of them, but you might still get a couple that can't be answered.

The pass mark is 75%. Some people make the mistake of thinking that when they can get 75% on the feedback papers, they're ready. But it doesn't work like that, because there will be a few questions which you have absolutely no chance of answering.

Learn the syllabus, and learn it well. You should be able to get 90% of the "good" questions right. If you can do that, you'll get 76% on the exam even if 15% of the questions are un-answerable. That should be enough for even the most off-syllabus badly-worded exam.

(The only exception is Air Law. I don't believe anyone knows 90% of the Air Law syllabus.)

FFF
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[My names Turkish]

Good poste VFE, I think you hit the Nail on the head. Creative use of Smilies too! But I still think we are having our Pants pulled down on the PoF exam and I'm holding my breath and hoping the next months exams are going to be a bit more sensible and hoping that the CAA are going to take their heads out of the Sand and listen to their Customers.

[Tigereye]

The words, sensible and Listen cannot be used in the same sentence as CAA.
http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung/alles_moegliche/mixed-smiley-006.gif

[Keith.Williams.]

There are a great many reasons why any individual student might fail an individual exam. Possibilities include:

(a) Lack of inteligence.
(b) Lack of preparation leading to lack of knowledge and
understanding of the subject area.
(c) Poor exam technique, including poor time management and
failure to read the questions carefully.
(d). Excessive prior enphasis on learning the answers to
feedback questions, instead of learning the subject area
and how to answer questions on it.
(e) Badly worded questions.
(f) Questions on material which is not part of the syllabus.
(g) Questions which require knowledge of material which
although part of the syllabus, is not adequately covered in
the course undertaken by the student.
(h) Sudden changes in the degree of difficulty in individual
examinations


(a) is largely incurable, within any reasonable time-scales, but can be compensated for by working on (b), (c).

(d) is very commmon and probably the main reason why many students cannot deal with new or unusual (strangely worded) questions .

Badly worded questions (e) are far too common and should (but do not appear to be) a matter of serious concern to the examiners.

Questions on material outside the syllabus (f) are actually quite rare and the examiners quickly remove any that are pointed out to them.

The failure of schools to adequately cover syllabus material (g) is surprising common. When providing consolidation courses for students, I frequently hear the comment "well they didn't tell me that at my school". In most cases the "new material" is the subject of frequently asked examination questions.

(h) Sudden changes in the degree of difficulty are a fairly new phenomenon. This problem had a marked effect on POF pass rates in the May and June exams.


Looking at the wider question of how can I maximise my chances of passing the exams, I would suggest the following:

(a) Learn the subject areas a fully as you possibly can, before
taking the exams.

(b) Use feedback questions throughout your training, in order to develop your ability to analyse and answer questions. But do not simply learn the answers to questions.

(c) Practice using lots of different variations of each type of question. As an example of this idea, consider the subject of speed stabilty. Most POF students can answer the question
"What effect will lowering the landing gear have on Vmd and speed stability" But what if the questions is something like,

Trimming an aircraft in flight will be most difficult with?

(a) Gear extended.
(b) Gear raised.
(c) Low mass.
(d) Forward C of G.

The next thing to do is practice, practice, practice. The best way to develop good exam technique is to get a good briefing from your school then do as many practice exams as possible.

Finaly never rush to take the exams. If you do not take them this month, you can be sure that they will still be there next month.

[Dick Whittingham]

What's the correct answer, Keith?

Dick W

[Keith.Williams.]

Hello dick,

I didn't actually say that there is a correct answer, but was simply illustrating how students might practice addressing problems from various angles. I would suggest that the question should be addressed in the following manner.

Trimming an aircraft in flight will be most difficult with?

(a) Gear extended.
(b) Gear raised.
(c) Low mass.
(d) Forward C of G.

Option (a)
Extending landing gear will increase profile drag. This will reduce Vmd and increase speed stability. A more speed stable aircraft will be easier to trim at any given speed. So this is probably not the correct answer.

Option (b)
Raising landing gear will reduce profile drag. This will increase Vmd and decrease speed stability. A less speed stable aircraft will be harder to trim at any given speed. So this might be the correct answer.

Option (c)
Reducing mass will reduce lift induced drag. This will also reduce Vmd and increase speed stability. Once again the aircraft will be more speed stable and hence easier to trim at any given airspeed. So this is probably not the correct answer.

Option (d)
Forward movement of the C of G increases stability, making the aircraft easier to trim at any given attitude. So this is unlikely to be the correct answer.

It is of course possible to argue that forward movement of the C of G requires more nose up trim. So with the C of G ahead of its forward limit it might be impossible to trim the aircraft. At this stage I suspect that the examiner would say " Ah yes but there is nothing in the question to suggest that the C of G is outside limits. It is usually inside limits, so your argument is based on an unreasonable assumption".

[Send Clowns]

I would add to Kieth's (g) above that some questions although covered in the syllabus, and not in themselves too difficult, are difficult to answer unless a similar question has been seen and solved before. There are a few examples in the Gen Nav syllabus that I would not have liked to encounter when I sat the exam without warning, and have since, while teaching the subject, developed straightforward techniques for. Sometimes it has taken me, as an instructor, 10 or 15 minutes to see how to answer the question, unpleasant in an exam.

This leads of course to the efficient use of feedback and schools question banks. If you come upon a question that you can answer but if you cannot generalise, i.e. you would not know how to answer a similar question, ask your instructor (or, of course, ask us here!).

[mad_jock]

From personal experence of people on my courses you can't just look at a student and work out if they are going to pass or not. Although I was told the school wasn't suprised when I passed mine.

We had people from very poor educational back grounds come up better than the degree peeps. And others that crashed and burned, degree and less. Some put next to no effort and were in the pub every night on the brush up and others every hour god sent.
And there seemed to be no link who passed and failed.

It seemed to be linked to what type of work you do more than anything. If you have to think and problem solve everyday. Getting into the swing of learning and answering questions with a bit of lateral thought comes relatively easly.


The biggest problem I think is the fact that the goal posts are constantly moving. As the schools become more up to date with the in topics the pass rates rise. They can't have too higher pass rates so they fiddel with the exams so that the pass rate drops down to what they want. Which means that depending on the quality of output from the schools the papers range in difficulty.

Which makes a joke when people quote there ATPL pass marks on there CV because there is no base standard. One person can have straight 80% across the board and another 90% plus but when the 80% person was sitting them the previous months students had all been passing with very high marks so they had made the exams harder.

Its proberly quite a hard call with the papers, the people setting proberly don't have any formal training in setting exams. The number of people sitting the exams don't allow any of the distribution curves to be used as they would in A' levels etc.

In my day it was the instrument paper that everyone was failing now it seems its PoF. IN a few months they might turn there attention to systems They want to keep the pass rate down to a certain level so there is not alot we can do about it.

MJ

[Dean Johnston]

MJ,

That all sounds very interesting, i would like to know if you have researched this or if its just a theory of yours. The reason I ask is I am on my last chance for PoF, and if I had sat this Pre March I could be flying by now. This seems so unfair, if like you say it is done just to fudge the figures. Do you have anything solid to backup your theory?

[Alex Whittingham]

The period he is referring to was over a year ago. Instruments was the bete noir of the day, largely because of some very poor questions about autopilots, tachogenerators and TCAS. Those questions have now been sorted out, and the pass mark is back up.

As Keith Williams has commented elsewhere, there is no conspiracy.

[Keith.Williams.]

If students could examine the (apparently confidential) national statistics, they would observe that the same group of subjects (POF, PERF INST, GNAV, MET) always have much lower pass rates than the others. There is certainly no conspiracy to keep churning the system such that the subjects at the bottom keep changing.

As I said in a previous post, the examiners quite simply are not able to recognise the fact that they have a problem. They see no problem with the fact that the POF pass rates are almost always in the low 60s, so why should they worry when they suddenly drop to 31 or 45?

There is no conspiracy, it is simply the result of in........

(a) competence.
(b) difference.
(c) eptitude.
(d) ertia.

It is possible that more than one option may be correct.

[mad_jock]

Just a theory.

All exams have a pass distribution which the examiners are looking for.

If the JAR exams allow a progressive increase in the pass rate without questions being asked and things done I would be very suprised.

Nearly all other exams are fiddled with to get the % which the powers that be are looking for.

But thankfully as I only had to sit all bar GNAV (and didn't know anything more on the subject when i passed it) once i can't comment. And will bow to the experence of Alex and Keith

MJ