First off, the post was not written to attack any individual. It was written to provoke a debate on whether the ATPL exams have lost the respect they should demand.
I have a few friends that did there ATPL’s a while ago, and talking to them, it seems that they were exams to be feared! You had to learn everything and put in the effort and even then passing was notoriously difficult. There was no talk of question banks, feedback etc.
As to me referring to distance learning as inferior......actually I did not. In fact, I think you could learn more as you are responsible for reading and learning everything and not being encouraged to read only certain parts. If you read the post you would find that, had I to choose again, distance learning would be my choice. What I meant was that from listening to numerous students, it sounds as if it is possible to learn enough in the two weeks class room time before the exams to pass, even if you have not put in the work during the prior weeks.
Make no mistake, even at the full time course that I am attending, it is really in the last two to three weeks that the majority of learning is done. During the preceding 6-9 weeks, it seems to be a rush to turn pages and highlight certain sections. There is very little time spent discussing problem topics in the class room. This however does not mean that you don’t get help. The staff are always available to help on an individual basis. Its just the class room session are a bit rushed. Even the ground instructors have admitted to this.
Now, with regards to “Rumours”, I was told by a cgi that not so long ago a certain well known school had received a slap on the wrist as it had access to papers through a member of the ground school staff. And although they received the wrist slap, they did however manage to keep the acquired goods or so I have been told.
Regardless of the whether the story is totally and factually true or not…..it’s not the main point I was trying to get across. The main point is that there are some schools that “prepare” their students with better info on the exams than others and to take advantage of that….I would if I could.
And then we have the CAA. It seems a bit strange that everybody except them will admit that their question bank is out in the open.
I hope others reading the post will recognise it as a discussion about the perceived and actual standards of the ATPL's and not individual schools.
Sorry you didn’t OC619.
Out of curiosity, if the fact that I only registered today does not affect the relevance of the post, then why mention it? Sounds like a politician’s remark!