Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Non-Airline Forums > Private Flying
Reload this Page >

PPL Thoery Study Techniques

Wikiposts
Search
Private Flying LAA/BMAA/BGA/BPA The sheer pleasure of flight.

PPL Thoery Study Techniques

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old 30th Jan 2008, 08:18
  #1 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Top Draw, Right Hand Side
Age: 38
Posts: 224
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
PPL Thoery Study Techniques

Hi All,

Here's the situation...

Off to Canada in 6 weeks for PPL, NR, HB. I plan to arrive in Canada with as many Thoery Test Certificates as possible. So...PPL Study Pack and text books arrived yesterday and its beginning to dawn on me how much I have to learn and pass in the next 6 weeks, particuarly with the PPL being all self taught!

So my question is this....

Whilst I know everyone learns differently, are there any particular study techniques that I should be looking at to help cram in the knowledge ASAP???

Cheers

CS
chris-squire is offline  
Old 30th Jan 2008, 09:49
  #2 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: VXXX
Posts: 144
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I studied for it in 2 weeks after my BAK exam, the test is easy... just go through a chapter at a time of the book, write a short summary, then at the end review it all and go through about 4 practice tests from different sources.

Dont retype it like a robot though, put summary's in short own words and yeah.

Thats what I did and got 87%

Not sure if the test is very different but yeah im in AUS btw.
ksa5223 is offline  
Old 30th Jan 2008, 09:59
  #3 (permalink)  

Hovering AND talking
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Propping up bars in the Lands of D H Lawrence and Bishop Bonner
Age: 59
Posts: 5,705
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Please don't let the post lull you into a false sense of security!

Everyone is different but, if I was in your position, I would aim to go through a subject every 5 days with continuous question practice. It's tough, especially if you're working. Personally, given the timescale, I wouldn't try to do a chapter of each subject (say) a day. I think you'd waste time by cross-referring.

Cheers

Whirls
Whirlygig is offline  
Old 30th Jan 2008, 11:14
  #4 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Top Draw, Right Hand Side
Age: 38
Posts: 224
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I think that could well be the way forward. Study all week after work and sit an exam every sunday, shich gives me the saturday to consolidate from the week and revise before the exam. Not gonna be easy but nothing decent in life comes easy I suppose!

Cheers guys

CS
chris-squire is offline  
Old 30th Jan 2008, 11:26
  #5 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: South Wales
Age: 42
Posts: 829
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Chris - I'm in the same position as you, I'm going to start looking for PPL material to read from soon as I aim to start my PPL training in June/July by taking 4 weeks off work.

I'm up to gen with ATPL exams (how many you can do / resits / visits etc) but not the PPL exams . From your post can I assume I/we can sit an exam every week? If so is this done at the school for example B-F-C?

Good luck with the exams Chris
AlphaMale is offline  
Old 30th Jan 2008, 12:09
  #6 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Top Draw, Right Hand Side
Age: 38
Posts: 224
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
AlphaMale - You can sit an exam every day if you want to. It's up to yu. You just ahve to do them at a CAA approved test centre. I'm doing all of my training through Cabair at Bournemouth who are approved to sit these exams so will be doing them there.

Hope this helps and good luck! Where abouts are you in the UK? If anywhere near Bournemouth it could be an idea to meet up and study together. As I said, my books arrived yesterday and I'm thinking theres alot to cram in!

CS
chris-squire is offline  
Old 30th Jan 2008, 12:32
  #7 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: South Wales
Age: 42
Posts: 829
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I'm from just outside of Cardiff so quite away from Bournemouth. I think B-F-C has a CAA office there so I could be in luck.

Meeting up to study would be a good idea but we're not really in the same area

Think I'll do one exam per week, I'm tempted to use the OAT CBT packs but I'm unsure how goos they are? I did buy a night rating CBT disk and it looks pretty good.
AlphaMale is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 08:49
  #8 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Foxtrot Oscar
Posts: 45
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Audio Supplements

Way back when, I purchased some Audio training CDs from the transair website. These worked well to supplement the reading I was already doing. The costed in all about £10 per subject. I just whacked them on my ipod and everytime I went out for a jog, or on my drive to work, i'd listen to them.

Theyre about an hour long, but I cannot stress enough that they should only supplement your reading and already existing revision techniques.

I also bought an AFE PPL book, full of practice questions for each subject.

Ive still got a few exams to go though!

Happy Landings.
mb2ai is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 14:05
  #9 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 98
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
mb2ai: Way back when, I purchased some Audio training CDs from the transair website. These worked well to supplement the reading I was already doing. The costed in all about £10 per subject. I just whacked them on my ipod and everytime I went out for a jog, or on my drive to work, i'd listen to them.
Holy moly! "Way back when" and "iPod" in the same paragraph.

I feel old! My "way back when" is a very bulky cassette walkman.
Hyph is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 14:17
  #10 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Top Draw, Right Hand Side
Age: 38
Posts: 224
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Well I've got the Trevor Thom books and thus far have only managed to have a few quick flicks through the Aviation Law & Meteorology book but went and did a practice PPL Law paper just to get an idea of what a paper would look like....answered about 2/3 questions and got 47% overall 1st time. Now...this is a far cry from passing and I've got alot of work to do to ensure the high marks but given that I managed to correctly answer almost half the paper with 1/3 of it not even attempted I'm reasonably optomistic for whats to come.

Although I get the impressiont hat this will be short lived!
chris-squire is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 16:07
  #11 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 156
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Read the books 1 subject at a time, twice if possible and then do some practice exams. I've just got the OAT PPL exam prep CDR and its really REALLY helpful. It contains all the PPL exams and generates new tests for you, you can even pick the chapters within a subject you wish to be tested on. Great help for me, averaging about 90% on the practice exams.

Phil
Philpaz is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 18:44
  #12 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: manchester
Posts: 12
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
for ppl get the ppl confuser, buy it from transair or any other pilot shop, all the questions are very similar and sometimes the same. I took 1 exam every week but subjects like human performance are just common sense really, which i did in a couple of days. Just hammer the confuser but also read the books because especially when you come to ATPL's you need the knowlegde. hope this helps
jetman12 is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 19:26
  #13 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Belfast
Posts: 80
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Have you got the PPL Confuser by Nung Sornying? Basically if you can answer all the questions in the confuser, you can breeze through the exams...
I'd say study hard for 3/4 days on each subject, should be enough time to cover most of the material. Then when you're done, attempt the confuser questions, and re-revise whatever you get wrong. Rinse and repeat until you are getting high scores in the confuser and you'll have no problems with the exams.
Irish_Stu is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 19:33
  #14 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Milan, Italy
Age: 54
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
My technique:
AFE books
1 subject at a time
first read and underline important things of subject
do the revision question at the end of each chapter
then re read quickly the whole subject
do the 3 papers of the "confuser" book (they are the same as the real ones
then do the test

It all worked fine for me (I have to say that I am an aeronautical engineer though and a sailplane pilot, so that helped a lot)

cheers
mattia_70 is offline  
Old 31st Jan 2008, 22:13
  #15 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Foxtrot Oscar
Posts: 45
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Way back when

What happens if you fail a PPL Theory exam, (as I have in the past)?

I know they say you can do it three times then you have to go Gatwick for an Exam.

If you pass second time - will that have any influence later on in life or training.

If you stay with the same FTO for ME CPL IR and MCC, will they put it on your final training report?

Will they say ahhh, due to the fact you 'eFF'd up once in your PPL theory, you may do the same in ATPL?? SEEeeya!

Or even if you go to a different FTO, will they know, hence will it effect me later on in training even at another FTO??

mb2ai is offline  
Old 13th May 2008, 09:11
  #16 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Nottingham
Age: 39
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Studying

Hi

The new oxford aviation training cd roms are a great training aid. They are worth the money at £40 each.
tomshepherd is offline  
Old 13th May 2008, 09:36
  #17 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 1,365
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
mb2ai

I believe the reason you only get 3 attempts is that the CAA only issue 3 exam papers for each subject, and therefore to retake a 4th time you will be doing a paper you have already failed. There is no guarentee they will let you do this, so don't rely on it.

The best study technique I can offer is to plan your subject order well. There is a lot of overlap across the subjects, and things make a lot more sense in a better order. For example, I found nav a lot easier having already done met.

I spent about a week learning each subject and got first time passes on all. Highest was 100% on HPL, lowest 75% on met.

Use the PPL confuser, it's brilliant.

Good luck to all.
RTN11 is offline  
Old 13th May 2008, 09:38
  #18 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Frinton-on-Sea
Posts: 302
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Most will tell you to avoid the OAT stuff - except for OAT. They are good, don't get me wrong but if you wanted to be a First Aider would you really want the full training to become a GP? Keep it simple and find out what best works for you.
Greg2041 is offline  
Old 19th Jan 2009, 16:00
  #19 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Flightdeck
Posts: 272
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
How does this sound. I read everye subject every day. I read for 20 minutes in every book. Then I take a break for 20 and then I read for 20 in the next book. Is this good? Should I do it chapter by chapter instead?

Like this. I read one chapter. Then I do the questions for this chapter and then I move on to another subject?

I have my second attempt at the Single Comand test in 3 weeks. And I have normal school work to think about as well.
fabbe92 is offline  
Old 19th Jan 2009, 16:02
  #20 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: UK.
Posts: 629
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Fabbe92,

No, thats called information overload. You should be trying to abosrb t he information long term, so you studying for 20mins (which isn't enough) and then changing subject will result in you getting mixed up and forgetting it all.

Study one book, answer questions on the one book and when you feel you know the information well then move onto the next.
preduk is offline  


Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.