Originally Posted by
jaycee46
Any hints on passing these exams!?
Sorry Jaycee46 - as you're a probationary Ppruner your reply snuck in between Whirly and HFD so I didn't see it until this morning.
Unfortunately the only hint you'll get from me is read the books, make brief notes, read it again, and again, until you've got it straight in your head.
If you've got instructor like mine who has a different job during the week but you get on well - see if he/she minds you e-mailing questions to them during the week - it means you don't have to wait for your next lesson and then bombard them, when you should be concentrating on the flying lesson and also makes better use of the time you've put aside for studying - and
make sure you DO put aside a few hours at a time - a few minutes here and there just makes it harder to take in as you have to re-read what you did last time to refresh, before you can learn some more.
I also got the PPL confuser and set up mock exams taking every 3rd or 4th question so that I had a range across the sylabus and sat them under exam conditions.
Don't attempt this until you've done the work as you're in danger of just learning the answers to the questions in the confuser rather then the subject matter in the books.
By the time I was confident I could attempt an answer to ALL of the questions in the confuser bank in less than the time allowed for the few questions in the exams - and achieve a borderline pass mark - I sat them. I went for the speed because I wanted to get out of the classroom as fast as possible - This may not work for you as we're all different.
Air Law was the hardest and I didn't get a particularly good mark (80%) but I was out in 40 minutes. All the others were much better.
I did Aircraft technical in 20 minutes (should be 1 1/2 hours) and got 90%.
HPL 10 minutes - 100%, Performance and Planning 15 minutes - 95%, RT theory 12 minutes - 97%.
I did a couple of sessions of ground school for RT - to ensure I understood the theory and to do trial routes for the Practical. Sorry - couldn't find a way of speeding up the practical - took 1 1/2 hours - and I hated every minute - doing my first oral exam at 43 was not fun and I was as nervous as hell.
Don't be put off by what I've done as I had plenty of practise studying for my professional qualification - which I taught myself.
There is no substitite for doing the work thoroughly.
I
hate doing exams and it nearly put me off doing the PPL - now I just accept it's got to be done - and just get on with it.
(It also helped that I've got an instructor who would get a gold medal in the olympics for nagging - and getting a lot of the exams out of the way very quickly gave him one less thing to pick on 
)
If you have any problems with any of the subject matter and don't want to talk to your instructor about it- PM me and I'll try to help. And if I don't know or can't explain it very well it will prompt me to go back to the books and read it again.
Good Luck and Happy Flying
MG
PS - Well done on the solo - got the adrenalin moving didn't it??