I must say that there is a very different emphasis between gaining a licence in the UK and US.
The US has a far more practical outlook on training with the theory and flying much more coincident. Here in the UK the theory is generally completed well before the skills test is passed and I found that I had lost alot of the useful practical knowledge that I had remembered so diligently some months before when doing the exams. Sure I can go back and reread the notes, but I still don't think this is as useful as doing the practical and theory side-by-side.
A monkey could be trained to pass the JAR ATPL exams and to pass the skills test - but he would not make a good pilot.
A monkey would not be able to pass an FAA test because he would not pass the oral.