I suspect that most of the people worrying about whether grades are important haven’t actually sat the exams yet. Once they have, they might appreciate just how much luck is involved in some of the results.
In the
Comms subjects, there are so few questions that the difference between a very high score and a fail could be just 3 or 4 wrong answers. Yes you could quite easily hit 100%, but throw in a few random nasty questions and you could get 74%.
In
Performance how many graph questions will there be? Are they simple calculations from some of the better produced graphs, or are they time-consuming ones from one of the many dodgy graphs in the CAP? How close is the answer spread? Does one obvious answer jump out, or are they all very close together, forcing you to guess a ‘three pointer’?
In
General Nav how many plotting / calculation questions will there be, as opposed to simple ‘do I know the answer to this one?’ type questions? Too many calculation questions, and you risk running out of time, like many candidates in my exam.
Does your ‘lucky’ subject come up? In my
Radio Nav exam, there were no less than 10 questions on GPS. Great if GPS is your thing (apart from the question with 2 correct answers)
but you’d be in trouble if you’d concentrated your revision on RNAV and the workings of DME.
In
Law, learn 600 feedback questions and you’ll pass. Easier said than done, so say you manage to memorise 300 of them. How many of your 300 come up – enough to pass? General knowledge is not going to help you in law (unless you’re an ATCO).
By the way, my favourite from the ‘random question generator’ was in
Ops Procedures:
Question 1:
“In Minimum Navigation Performance Specification (MNPS) airspace . . . blah blah blah . . .”
Question 2:
“What does MNPS stand for?”
Obviously hard work and revision help, as does good feedback – together with coaching from the groundschool, it can help you spot a dodgy question a mile off – but an awful lot of it is down to the random nature of the questions. I was very lucky, I didn’t get any of the ‘horror-story’ exams you sometimes hear about, and I passed them all first time with good grades. However, I’m certain that on a different day, with a slightly different question mix, I’d have been borderline on some subjects, and would have failed others.
Honestly, in the ATPLS, a four leaf clover and lucky rabbit’s foot are as important as a wizzwheel and sharp pencil. Do your best, by all means aim for 100%, but it’s the pass that matters. Pass the exams, tick the box, move on.