Originally Posted by
LeadSled
At the final PPL exams, about 80% dropped out, because they could not pass the CASA "trick question" examination. None of the people interviewed were "dumb", indeed they varied from teens with a TER of better than 85 to very successful businessmen, and several doctors and lawyers.
I am no fan of the CASA exam wordings (which are often more a test of english comprehension rather than pilot knowledge) but I do find an 80% drop out rate due to difficulty with the PPL exam surprising. Or have I misunderstood and you mean CPL? I would be interested to see the study you mention.
Reason I am surprised is most PPL students I am involved with who are at the point in their training where they will be doing the PPL theory exam, will pass it (students ranging from school kids to retirees and all in between (from both academic and non academic backgrounds)), most on first and the rest on second go, if they are motivated and prepare well.
Resources like Bob Tait's books seem to give a pretty good basis for attempting the PPL exam (in my experience).
There will be regularly cases where students appear to get a question wrong (according to KDRs) that they seem to know the correct information on (making me figure they misunderstood or were tricked by the wording) but they usually get the required marks and definitely not an 80% fail rate.
Those that fail often are not putting in the hard work studying and I often can feel that well before they do the test by their general attitude to theory study and lesson preparation leading up to that point.