ATPL Exams! What to expect?

[St. Helier]

Evening everyone,

Really this is just a question about the JAR ATPL Exams, I no that they tend to be relatively tough, but are they as tough as they are set out to be? What im saying is, is it common that many people fail the exams? Are they as hard as say your GCSE's or A-Levels?

Id like to hear anybodys views

Helier

[Stumpyotoole]

I have recently finished the ATPL's and yes, they were hard! BUT (and its a big but) they are not nearly as bad as you may be led to believe!

I can honestly say that i have never put as much effort into a set of exams as i did for these (GCSE's and A's included) and I think this is mainly due to the fact that I WANTED to pass them, the subjects are relevant (in most cases!) to the career I want to take and therefore I wanted to learn as much as possible.

They run on the same format as the PPL exams, multiple choice , 75% pass mark etc, though there are a lot more questions involved with some of the subjects. If you have a good support network through the school that you learn with (be it distance or full time) and access to good feedback you should have no problems! I know of a few people who have failed the odd exam but normally its only by an annoying couple of percent - and in a lot of cases due to not reading the question properly!

two pieces of advice that stood me and my fellow students in good stead:

- Read the question, then read it again - RTFQ!!
-If in doubt, draw a diagram, its easier than following a picture in your head.


Be prepared for lots of hard work and moments where you think you will never 'get it' - from experience, when i did the exams, I realised I had absorbed much more than i initially thought!

another piece of advice, when you do them, try and keep your flying up regularly (I didn't and it did get me down from time to time) it will help with the day to day aspects of the studying ('ah, i never realised why you did that!') and it also is a great diversion from piles of paperwork!

hope this helps - feel free to PM if you have questions

and GOOD LUCK!

[Brian304]

Well the ATPL exams are quite hard actually, theres too much to renember all in one pile, well wait till you get to AGK and instruments thats when the fun really starts lol. But the knowledge isn't that bad, just abit of an upgrade from PPL. But the feedback is good, and most of it turns out to be the same on the exams as on the feedback database questions, so do use it. But as I just recently found out, there will be some exams that don't contain many feedback questions, and alot of new questions instead. So don't just study the database. Finally of all RTFQ (read the f**king question), as not reading the question sometimes on the exam and just going straight to the answer on the feedback is not a good way to do business, as they may have changed some words in the question.

All the best of luck...

Brian304:ok: