Help Studying Air Law
 

Hi all,

So im am 18 hours into PPL and am really struggiling wioth the airlaw.

Read the book 3 or 4 times been watching CBT vids to on and off now going through book making notes to but still cant seem to get more then 55% - 60% on the airquiz practice test.

What can I do its really getting frustrating?

Thanks

Kev

Sounds like you don't really have a proper way to study. A lot of people struggle with this out of a classroom environment and don't know how to self study effectively.

Just reading the book isn't going to make anything sink in, try making your own notes. Also, you may have over done it, if you try to learn the whole thing in one go or one evening it will never sink in, you need to come up with a timetable to structure your learning and break it down into chunks. Then you will find it sinks in more over time. Also taking regular breaks, I could never go much more than 45 mins of study before I wanted to take a break, and that worked for me getting through the ATPL exams.

Air Law is clearly one of the driest subjects, just awful for many people. I would recommend the PPL perfector as a Q&A book, I've seen many students do very well in all the subjects using this.

Google "Air Law Online Test".

I've renewed my license twice now, with the air law component being the only written exam. My exam was FAA brand (Philippines) and I found a free online reviewer containing all the potential questions.

A couple of hours (boring) sitting the online tests and I was hitting between 90 and 100 percent.

Exam was a piece of cake.

Wouldn't advise this approach for all subjects but air law is soooo dull.

Hope you find something useful.

Best,

SSS

I'd suggest signing up to a on-line question bank, plenty on the net :)

Trouble with air law is that there's nothing to understand, you just have to memorise it. That's not how I learn - I remember how things work, then if stuck in the exam I can work out the answer from first principles. This doesn't work with air law.

If you're useless at memorising unconnected meaningless facts, like I am, then it's going to be tough ... but the good news is that the other exams are nothing like as bad in this respect.

For your own purposes, as opposed to simply passing the exam, you need to work out which bits of air law

(1) you need to know to stay alive
(2) you need to know to avoid seriously expensive prosecution
(3) are irrelevant twaddle that you can forget the day after the exam.

I read through the text book slowly over a number of days, then "revised" by going through the text book again, writing my own notes on all key points (other than drawing out all of the lollipop men...). I included diagrams that made sense to me... I think I ended up with about 6 A5 pages of bullet points and diagrams.
I then used online question banks (airquiz) to confirm where my knowledge was lacking and re-revised those.
I then went through the appropriate EASA PPL Exam Secrets Guides
the night before and went through any areas I wasn't 100% sure of the answer in (so no guessing).

I got 1 question wrong in the exam (and I then argued that the question was ambiguous and my explanation for my answer was, I believe, correct - not that it matters for multiple choice!).
I must say - without going through the secrets guide, I would have found some questions much harder (the questions in the guides are suspiciously similar to the actual ones).

But then I have a degree and my Dad's a lawyer so its probably in the blood. In saying that - I can't quote things to save my life (have had great trouble with checklists!).

One bit of advice: PPL Confuser.

I read the Pooley's book but learned much more from the PPL Confuser. It's out of date now but it helped me immensely and I only did the air law exam last year.

The problem is that you can't buy it any more. I'd be happy to hand over the cover price to the copyright holder but it's not possible. You could try Googling - there are PDF versions of it kicking around on the Internet.

So very true. And in fact, the bits under (1) can usually be reasonably and easily explained and rationalised, (2) less so, and (3) are usually just a memory exercise anyway.

*************** is good for this kind of thing.

I struggled with Air Law for ages but it clicked after doing the online tests and setting aside a designated time to study.

The problem with Airlaw being there is no clear logic to a lot of it.
With mechanics you can trace this wire going to this lever going through this thingy here finally pulling over there.
There is logic, even visual as to how it works.

Air Law is like learning a foreign language, you just ahve to memorize the phrases till it starts making sense and your brain can actually make little connections between them.

Doing endless practice tests really help in this regard.

Discuss it with you instructor if it continues to be a problem. There may be groundschool classes at your club, I doubt you'll be the only one finding air law boring! If there are no dedicated classes, then ask to go through elements with an instructor. You may find a couple of hours discussing the subject useful...

It's absolutely awful isn't it? The only way that worked for me was the confuser - I have an old copy if you want it :ok:

Failed
 

Hey all,

Firstly thank you all for your input much appreciated.

Defo think its down to my study stratergy funny as it sounds dont think i no how to study! :ugh: Anyone got anymore tips for this exam and future exams?

So took the test at weekend after doing alot of Airquiz practice tests and failed miserably with a score of 51% not good.

Felt rather depressed after also didnt fly as got me down and wasnt in the right mind set.

Any advise be good you think i should stop? Am I going to be able to do the other exams??? Starting to doubt that.

Regards

k

Nope, you clearly want to fly and so you should continue. Of course you will be despondent, but the sense of achievement you will feel when you get your license will be all the greater.

Air Law is the most unpleasant exam I've ever done (and I've done a load). It's just a grinding memory test. The other topics are much more interesting, so I shouldn't worry about it.

I would suggest revising in absolute quiet (that works well for me) in short chunks or 30-40 mins tops. Pick up on the individual topics for each session. For example, aerodromes, privileges, classes of airspace, safety and that damned Chicago convention stuff. Examination aids such as the PPL confuser are helpful if you can get one. They appear on eBay from time to time.

Keep going, it will be worth it!

Air law is definitely the hardest subject to learn by a long way.

Its worth also thinking about your strategy for actually taking the multiple choice test. Here's what I tell people to do:
- read all the paper and all the questions carefully first
- first, answer the questions that you definitely know the answers to
- go over the other questions and decide which you think you may be able to work out
- do these ones next (but make sure you leave enough time to finish the rest as well) if you can weed out answer choices that are wrong then you can make a guess between the other answers - this is a way of increasing the chances of you picking the correct answer
- lastly do the ones that you have no idea at all about. Just pick an answer. Its important to answer all the questions on the paper even the ones you dont know, because sometimes you will select the correct answer by luck. The pass mark is set assuming you will do this, so leaving some questions unanswered is a very bad idea.

Good luck next time

H

Unfortunately questionbanks are a necessity for these exams, both for the PPL and the ATPL exams as I'm now finding. They go against the spirit of learning, and regrettably the nature of multi-choice exams is that it's entirely possible to get 90% + in exams without knowning anything about the subject at all. Conversely the questions asked are often very esoteric and even quite a good knowledge of the subject is insufficient to answer the questions asked.

As someone else has said you need to strike a balance between identifying the bits of the subjects you need to learn and understand to stay alive. For example knowing when carb ice is likely to form, and knowing which way to turn if you are approaching an aircraft head-on. Beyond that, its a case of rote-learning answers sadly.

The best strategy I find is reading through the material covering an area, making notes and listing key points, and then hammering practise questions on the same material.

Air law is a thoroughly stupid exam, examined via a system of multiple choice questions where the answers all sound similar, which is made all the more difficult by being padded out with loads of un-necessary crap. However, whilst two-thirds of the content is twaddle, one third is mission-critical info which can (and will) save your life.

The only way through that I found worked for me, was to buy the Oxford Aviation Academy interactive discs, and then sweating through exam after exam, until I got up to a reliable 85-90%.

It's a total fag, but you just have to get through it. The alternative is to spend a day with Derek Davidson, where you will get drilled full of info all day long, culminating in an exam (which you WILL pass).

Be careful not to use up too many of your 'lives' on the exam - you get three go's at it, and then you will have to sit a specially asigned exam at CAA headquarters, which is not a good thing. Good luck!

Pm for you.

Isn't that when you pull the "CARB HEAT" knob?

OTOH, Carb Ice is a different ballgame altogether and afaik it's not covered by "air-law" anyway

hat, coat........:}

Touche. Thanks for pointing out :ugh:.

I wasn't trying to imply that carb icing is anything to do with air law - rather that the comments I was making apply equally to all subjects. Hopefully the OP realises this !!!