what total rubbish. I learnt the QB and had no trouble at all passing a type course. A lot of the stuff in the ATPL's is things you don't need to know, the stuff you need to know is stuff that you will come across again and again, during type courses or line training or IR renewals or line checks or line flying etc. Obviously knowing everything is the best way but not knowing it all is not that bad, there is way too much stuff to know so you would forget the unimportant bits in the end anyway. Ask any 10,000hr+ Catain on a widebody jet how many fire extinguishers a 100 seat a/c needs and they won't know. Same goes for the inner workings of a ac gen etc etc.