I did mine about five or six weeks ago. It is the first exam I'd taken in 27 years.
I used the Pooley's Trevor Thom red book, vol 2. It is hard going. I read the whole air law section first, but a lot was 'scanned' rather than taking it in verbatim.
To supplement it I found the AFE Simplifier cram section of a few pages, maybe four to six pages for each exam, a very good way to get started on doing test papers having read the texts. I used the AFE Simplifier tests and Pooley's Q&A book too.
I also used PPL Cruiser and Airquiz online for test papers but find PPL Cruiser less hassle as you don't have to go back to your email to find the results.
Using test papers I found to be very useful. Just sitting there reading a book and expecting to soak it up becomes a diminishing return after a while.
I achieved 87% in my air law which I was quite chuffed with at the time bearing in mind I'd not touched any exam or done any formal learning for such a long time.
In the few weeks since then I have done Met (100%), Nav (100%), Human performance (90%), Aircraft tech (98%) and Comms (93%). Met was the hardest since air law followed by aircraft tech. Met I made a right old meal of, unnecessarily, spent about four weeks fretting over nothing. A/c tech took me three and a half days on/off from first picking up the book: I picked the book up last Friday and took the exam on Tuesday. Human perf I talked over with the instructor after reading the book, no test papers, then walked straight into the exam. Comms took one solid evening, took the exam the next day, but I do have 40+ hours' flying, which makes it easier as I've actually done some of it for real. I am taking Fight perf & planning on Monday.
Since doing air law, my first exam, I also discovered The Great Circle test papers available as apps. They seem to be the most representative test papers I've seen. If you can answer their question bank I'd say you'd be in good stead.
In short there is no magic wand, nor should there be: if you really want to achieve something then you need to work at it. However, having said that, my last paragraph holds probably the best single tip. That, and a bit of self-imposed competition, realising someone else in the club is doing better than me!
Cheers, Howard
Last edited by Howard Long; 21st June 2013 at 21:52.