The vast majority of professional (and school/college) exams these days are multiple choice and the ATPL exams aren't the only ones for which you can find question banks. I worked in an industry where you are better of studying the subject altogether through question banks, rather than reading the out of date waffle offered inside text books (sounds familiar?
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Multiple choice is the way of the world now and provides us all with safe guards and common standards, in my opinion a much fairer way of examination marking. From an examiner's point of view, can you imagine sitting down and reading/marking answers hand written by people who speak English only as a second language?