Which school offers the best feedback, Oxford or Bristol??
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Apparently Oxford's feedback is v good, but the experience I have with Bristol is that they are very clued up with regards to the exams. I averaged 93% in the exams I took after brushing up with Bristol.
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After reading all the recommendations, still worried about Welshpool.
Haven't been there but it doesn't seem to add up.
Fuel for 45 hours- £900?
Aircraft depreciation/insurance/maintenance- £1000?
Insructor pay and employment costs- £400?
Exams./Examiner- £200?
Accommodation- £300?
Admin./building/Advertising/Airport cost-£200?
Profit- there isn't any!
So what's wrong or does the Welshpool course actually cost much more than they claim?
Haven't been there but it doesn't seem to add up.
Fuel for 45 hours- £900?
Aircraft depreciation/insurance/maintenance- £1000?
Insructor pay and employment costs- £400?
Exams./Examiner- £200?
Accommodation- £300?
Admin./building/Advertising/Airport cost-£200?
Profit- there isn't any!
So what's wrong or does the Welshpool course actually cost much more than they claim?
Query,
You've stumbled onto a thread about groundschools. You probably want to be back on a thread extolling the virtues of flight training in the US whilst denigrating Uk flying training organizations with faint praise.
You've stumbled onto a thread about groundschools. You probably want to be back on a thread extolling the virtues of flight training in the US whilst denigrating Uk flying training organizations with faint praise.
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Given that all the feedback comes from students fresh from JAR exams with scrambled (or occasionally fried) brains, it probably doesn't matter which school, but I thought Oxford's feedback for many subjects was excellent. For Human Performance especially I would recommend Oxford for future use as they have a man on the 'inside' as it were. If you can, why not try both and compare them for yourself. let us know what you think.
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This is beacuse the UK FTO's give the HPL Qs to the JAR Question bank. I was told this by an Oxford instructor. So they are all on the inside if you get my drift...... 
[ 02 December 2001: Message edited by: 200V AC, 3 Phase, 400 Hz ]
[ 02 December 2001: Message edited by: 200V AC, 3 Phase, 400 Hz ]
Jet Blast Rat
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Who cares? With the possible exception of Air Law the easiest way of passing the exams is through understanding the subject, not knowing the questions. All the schools have enough feedback to know the questioning style, and the rest doesn't matter.
Be careful not to expend more effort learning how to answer specific questions than you would have in understanding the subject!
Be careful not to expend more effort learning how to answer specific questions than you would have in understanding the subject!
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From my experience (Bristol all first time pass) and other's, I would say the feedback is more or less the same in all good schools. The difference is going to be on the notes (so have a good look to both) but, above all, in your determination to get through.
I can tell you that there's no way you can pass on the feedback only (remember new feedback is coming all the time). As somebody already said, you'll have to understand the subjects.
Good luck anyway.
I can tell you that there's no way you can pass on the feedback only (remember new feedback is coming all the time). As somebody already said, you'll have to understand the subjects.
Good luck anyway.
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There hasn't been any new questions since the bank started. Every 6 months they weed out all the ***** questions which the schools complain about.
The reason why oxford has good feedback is because from the word go they organised the BA cadets to gather it (Thanks chaps)and none of the other schools have had the volume through to gather the feedback. I used to have 1 lever arch binder full of it and 1 flight bags worth. Air law alone has something like 900 feedback questions hp 700, op 450, gen nav 190, p of f 600, m& b 150 etc
Currently there are over 300 modualar students in the system at OAT. When i first read the pass marks i thought "aye right" but after sitting in a class room for 2 weeks last month with 9 out of 12 people passing all the instrument exams first time. I am beginning to believe that they do resemble the truth.
MJ
PS no i won't send the feedback to anyone because its already been had by a coventry student and a kiwi who can't be bothered reading the airlaw book.
The reason why oxford has good feedback is because from the word go they organised the BA cadets to gather it (Thanks chaps)and none of the other schools have had the volume through to gather the feedback. I used to have 1 lever arch binder full of it and 1 flight bags worth. Air law alone has something like 900 feedback questions hp 700, op 450, gen nav 190, p of f 600, m& b 150 etc
Currently there are over 300 modualar students in the system at OAT. When i first read the pass marks i thought "aye right" but after sitting in a class room for 2 weeks last month with 9 out of 12 people passing all the instrument exams first time. I am beginning to believe that they do resemble the truth.
MJ
PS no i won't send the feedback to anyone because its already been had by a coventry student and a kiwi who can't be bothered reading the airlaw book.
Jet Blast Rat
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There are new questions all the time in most subjects, mad jock. This is the experience of my students confirmed by CAA representatives. Only part of the reason not to rely on feedback.
Oh, and best of luck, SuperTed. Any help needed, get in touch (or any private tuition needed!)
[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: Send Clowns ]
Oh, and best of luck, SuperTed. Any help needed, get in touch (or any private tuition needed!)
[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: Send Clowns ]
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I think its more of a case that sft never had enough students going through to record them.
In coms, ops, airlaw, hp, PoF, Pref, systems and istru exams that i have taken approx 70-80% of the questions that have been in Oxford feedback or worded almost the same. coms, OPs, airlaw and Hp you can pass without even opening the books if you get hold of a set or have UK diving qualification if last months exam was anything to go by for HP.
Have you seen a set of OAT feedback? We are talking more than a flight cases worth containing 1000's of questions.
I am not saying rely totally on feedback (apart from airlaw and ops which would be a nightmare otherwise) but at least give yourself the advantage that alot of the other wannabies have.
MJ
In coms, ops, airlaw, hp, PoF, Pref, systems and istru exams that i have taken approx 70-80% of the questions that have been in Oxford feedback or worded almost the same. coms, OPs, airlaw and Hp you can pass without even opening the books if you get hold of a set or have UK diving qualification if last months exam was anything to go by for HP.
Have you seen a set of OAT feedback? We are talking more than a flight cases worth containing 1000's of questions.
I am not saying rely totally on feedback (apart from airlaw and ops which would be a nightmare otherwise) but at least give yourself the advantage that alot of the other wannabies have.
MJ
Jet Blast Rat
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No, Mad Jock, SFT had plenty of feedback. Are you also accusing two representatives of the CAA I spoke to of lying to my face about new questions? Or do you think you know better than the man that vets the General Nav questions what is in the question bank?
There are new questions (though for about the first year they worked with the original question bank), and I think it is unfortunate to encourage people not only to assume all questions have been seen before but that the best way of learning is by feedback. It is not, and we have seen students who overemphasised this way of learning fall flat on their faces.
Early in JAA there was informal agreement between many of the schools to share feedback, so we had sufficient. We distributed it to students towards the end of the course, but up to that point insisted the student understand the work. Feedback has its place, and there are certainly individual, odd, off-the-wall questions that come up occasionally that I showed to students. But I taught them how to answer and why, not just the correct answer, just in case. Much the easiest way to learn, and still my favoured technique when giving private tuition.
Oh, and yes I have seen OATS feedback in my subject. Nothing new, exactly what I teach my students to answer. Except for the figures I could write the questions myself and have just as good a set. There is a limit to what they can ask, and most are written because they are easy questions to write, not because they are sensible questions to ask
However, is it easier to learn 1000s of questions or understanding of a subject? In my experience most students find the latter. And if you think HPL is easy with feedback, well I took it in my first module last year when little feedback was around anywhere and managed 98% (and I have never done any diving!).
[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: Send Clowns ]
There are new questions (though for about the first year they worked with the original question bank), and I think it is unfortunate to encourage people not only to assume all questions have been seen before but that the best way of learning is by feedback. It is not, and we have seen students who overemphasised this way of learning fall flat on their faces.
Early in JAA there was informal agreement between many of the schools to share feedback, so we had sufficient. We distributed it to students towards the end of the course, but up to that point insisted the student understand the work. Feedback has its place, and there are certainly individual, odd, off-the-wall questions that come up occasionally that I showed to students. But I taught them how to answer and why, not just the correct answer, just in case. Much the easiest way to learn, and still my favoured technique when giving private tuition.
Oh, and yes I have seen OATS feedback in my subject. Nothing new, exactly what I teach my students to answer. Except for the figures I could write the questions myself and have just as good a set. There is a limit to what they can ask, and most are written because they are easy questions to write, not because they are sensible questions to ask
However, is it easier to learn 1000s of questions or understanding of a subject? In my experience most students find the latter. And if you think HPL is easy with feedback, well I took it in my first module last year when little feedback was around anywhere and managed 98% (and I have never done any diving!).[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: Send Clowns ]
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Well it looks like the caa are telling different storys to OAT then. We were told that they hadn't changed the bank apart from removing questions (And they do have one of the examiners working for them).
And do you honestly believe that these poor guys have time to sit down and make up new questions? if the current exams still have a reasonable spread of pass fails, why bother. Of course they are going to say they are making new ones so that the instructors don't start missing chunks of the sylabus out to suit the current feedback questions. (aka what OAT is currently doing)
Anyway i am not saying that feedback is the be all and end all of the jar exams. But you can make you life difficult and go blind into the exams or not.
I was answering the question which has the better feedback. And from meeting people at gatwick from cov, bristol and sft etc Oxford does by a mile and even just running through the feedback once in the week before makes a huge difference to the number of gut feelings you have answering you don't need to learn them all.
And you may have a point about everyone should learn the subjects but like it or not there is a black market among wannabies for OAT feedback and notes because people pass exams using them (and i am not saying you won't pass if you don't have them). The pass is worth the same if you have used feedback or not.
MJ
Ps the comment about diving was because there must have been 10% of the paper on DCS. Mind you in 10 years of diving i have never used or heard the term strangles or creeps.
And do you honestly believe that these poor guys have time to sit down and make up new questions? if the current exams still have a reasonable spread of pass fails, why bother. Of course they are going to say they are making new ones so that the instructors don't start missing chunks of the sylabus out to suit the current feedback questions. (aka what OAT is currently doing)
Anyway i am not saying that feedback is the be all and end all of the jar exams. But you can make you life difficult and go blind into the exams or not.
I was answering the question which has the better feedback. And from meeting people at gatwick from cov, bristol and sft etc Oxford does by a mile and even just running through the feedback once in the week before makes a huge difference to the number of gut feelings you have answering you don't need to learn them all.
And you may have a point about everyone should learn the subjects but like it or not there is a black market among wannabies for OAT feedback and notes because people pass exams using them (and i am not saying you won't pass if you don't have them). The pass is worth the same if you have used feedback or not.
MJ
Ps the comment about diving was because there must have been 10% of the paper on DCS. Mind you in 10 years of diving i have never used or heard the term strangles or creeps.
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They receive questions from all over the JAA region continuously. The CAA do not write any of the questions themselves, just provide members for the vetting committees. Hence some come from OATS instructors, for example.
Why would the CAA lie to us? The happily talk about how they will ask questions. They happily admit that the questions never cover certain areas of the syllabus, for various reasons, and of course we all miss out areas that are known never to be examined. However there are genuine new questions - I was talking about it with the CAA representative on the General Nav committee only a few months ago, and he had no reason to lie.
Does OATS really have examiners working for them as oppose to people who write the questions? I would be surprised, and expect there to be a lawsuit in there somewhere for any student not of OATS who failed that subject. I would certainly sue had I had any significant hassle from failing exams if someone else had that unfair advantage.
When did OATS tell you all this, anyway? For a long while no new questions came in while the exams were sorted. In some subjects they are still not, I believe. Our suspiscions that new questions were finally being introduced (as always intended) were only confirmed by asking the inspector in this year's CAA inspection, so it could be that OATS in their assumptions have taken their eye off the ball.
OATS are not the be all and end all. They think they are, but it ends with the CAA. Think I'll believe them.
I did point out that feedback has it's place, and woulod never send a student into an exam not knowing what to expect. My point is that all schools have sufficient feedback to give this help, so to base a choice of schools on this is placing too much emphasis on feedback.
[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: Send Clowns ]
Why would the CAA lie to us? The happily talk about how they will ask questions. They happily admit that the questions never cover certain areas of the syllabus, for various reasons, and of course we all miss out areas that are known never to be examined. However there are genuine new questions - I was talking about it with the CAA representative on the General Nav committee only a few months ago, and he had no reason to lie.
Does OATS really have examiners working for them as oppose to people who write the questions? I would be surprised, and expect there to be a lawsuit in there somewhere for any student not of OATS who failed that subject. I would certainly sue had I had any significant hassle from failing exams if someone else had that unfair advantage.
When did OATS tell you all this, anyway? For a long while no new questions came in while the exams were sorted. In some subjects they are still not, I believe. Our suspiscions that new questions were finally being introduced (as always intended) were only confirmed by asking the inspector in this year's CAA inspection, so it could be that OATS in their assumptions have taken their eye off the ball.
OATS are not the be all and end all. They think they are, but it ends with the CAA. Think I'll believe them.
I did point out that feedback has it's place, and woulod never send a student into an exam not knowing what to expect. My point is that all schools have sufficient feedback to give this help, so to base a choice of schools on this is placing too much emphasis on feedback.
[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: Send Clowns ]
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A civil servant lie to a member of the general public never. The only info i have is what our instructors told us at OAT and i have seen no evidence to prove them wrong.
But it still stands that for most papers 70-80+% of the questions are in OAT feedback. And the updates to the feedback in recent months have been 1-2 questions max.
You might not like it but it is true. I have seen the stuff that other students have been given while sitting exams at Gatwick, OAT students have a huge advantage.
Its up to yourselves wannabies you can slog through the whole sylabus if you like but from experence it makes life alot more easy if you use whatever advantages that others have access to.
MJ
But it still stands that for most papers 70-80+% of the questions are in OAT feedback. And the updates to the feedback in recent months have been 1-2 questions max.
You might not like it but it is true. I have seen the stuff that other students have been given while sitting exams at Gatwick, OAT students have a huge advantage.
Its up to yourselves wannabies you can slog through the whole sylabus if you like but from experence it makes life alot more easy if you use whatever advantages that others have access to.
MJ