Originally Posted by
ersa
If you gain an IR within 3 years from your last ATPL exam, you have 7 years to gain enough experience to pass an ATPL flight test , if not you go back to a CPL
Almost, it's 7 years from your last IR. So as long as you keep revalidating your IR they'll never run out.
As for the best study technique, there are two: Study/Test or Test/Study.
Study/Test is old school in-depth studying of books etc, with no idea what's relevant and what's not. Usually while muttering the phrase "I want to properly understand the subject, not just pass a test.." and usually followed by failure.
Test/Study is taking a test purely to find out the answers, then hitting the books to find out WHY those are the answers: Actively going looking for answers while building a mental framework of the subject, making use of question banks, Google, YouTube and course books. There are a finite number of learning objectives and a limited number of ways to test them, so this is the most effective way to study.