Yes sir, I am OJT ATC. Doing pretty well too.
I still don't approve to the fact that you tell them to not practice. What they practice is still very different to the whole exam, the training and most of all, the real life situation. If someone is not cut out for this, they can practice all they want, they won't pass. People are stubborn, they come here to get an answer, telling them "don't do that, you will fail the training", will only make them to say "yea yea w/e, I'll see when I'm there". Also, training the brain is normal. If only "pure breeds", people that never ever trained their brain, memory, attention worked at EC, well....my guess is that they would have only a handful of them in the whole Europe.
My best training was playing MMoRPGs since 2004, so I got my attention very well formed, plus I have a decent brain and memory, enough for the job I guess.
You don't know if you're qualified until you take the test and wanting to know what's to be expected of you is natural. Even at regular interviews, for like McDonalds, they probably ask you if you know what the company does for a living, so they can tell if you know what you're getting into.
I for one, didn't know that. My aunt(who is an ATCO) told me "take the test, it's a very nice job". That cleared everything for me... and, at least here qualified ATCOs don't really talk about their job to the full extent, since most of it is classified.
Anyway, to end this huge chapter, and I strongly emphasize...
Practicing the test DOES NOT mean you are going to become an ATC or if you do become one by a miracle, survive in this world.
Even at a middle size traffic TWR, the resposability per plane is HUGE, you start dreaming at night scenarios and what not, not for the weak(well can be for the weak if you don't really care about others or you and are just in it for money).
So again, practice, but if you're just stacking bricks without a solid foundation, the building(you) will collapse.
So BeT, since I've become older and wiser, I'd like to apologise if I insulted you in any way, I admit I was a bit angry that you, any of you, told me I will not become ATC because *insert reasons*. I guess you were only trying to help, but as I said, stubbornness kills or helps, depends.
Cheers and I wish you all 0 red screens/mayday's/pans and everything negative.
Have a good day.