WWW, how about an area for JAR ATPL feedback Q's?
 

Ok,

this may sound like a stupid idea, but how about an area on PPrune soley for the purpose of sharing JAR ATPL feedback questions?

I know a lot of people disagree with the whole 'learning the Q's & A's' argument, but lets face it, the feedback questions are more and more becoming an important part of complementing your knowledge (aquired from your manuals - NOT feedback questions!) and its getting increasingly more difficult to pass exams without looking at some form or shape of feedback!

There are obviously a lot of people that are asking for this or that feedback, so why not put them somewhere accessable for all? I know I'd happily put anything i've got on if it helps somebody else, thats the name of the game isnt it?

how about it? what does everybody think?
:confused:

Sounds a great idea, but it couldn't be taken straight from the schools feedback handouts - these are copyright.

A JAA ATPL feedback forum with questions submitted directly from exam takers would certainly useful.

It would require careful moderation from someone with specialist knowledge though.

Why? There is already a site for this. It can be found at:

http://pub31.ezboard.com/batpldlsg

lonerider:

okay, but it's that's rather obsure - the whole point of having a PPRuNe feedback forum would be that as PPRuNe is almost universally read, therefore 1000's of chances of questions being remembered, therefore potentially highly successful.

What you are asking for is commercially available in a professionally presented, validated and inexpensive form.

I cannot see that a forum for ATPL Q's would be a great success.

Sorry,

WWW

hey again

By commercially available I guess you mean from the likes of Oxford etal via the 'crammer' courses (which I must hasten to add are VERY good, they got me through met!).

Is there anywhere else that I dont know about?

This is all very well & good, but my idea was thinking more along the lines of student goes into the exam, student posts particular question on certain subject matter. This I assume would get round the 'copyright' scandal that the schools seem to be hiding behind (I thought the JAA held copyright for the questions?!) and also having up to date feedback. this would be particularly beneficial to people that have done the 'crammers', failed and dont really want to dish out another £100 for the same lecture, same notes, just more up to date questions.
You know, a bit of camarderie - we're all in this together so why not help each other out?

had a look at that site lonerider, but didnt find it that comprehensive unfortunately.

as I said, its just an idea, but one that could be really beneficial to students, whadda you think WWW & Scroggs?

There's nothing to stop anyone starting a thread containing feedback questions, but I doubt that it could compete with what's put out by all of the good ground schools out there - and which generally comes free as part of your course charge.

We won't get another forum out of 'the management' - Wannabes already takes up a very large proportion of Pprune's server load! Neither do we have Archives any more, as they were re-combined with the main forums when we installed the new software. (You can still access them via 'Search' and the appropriate terminology).

bombay bandit

I think your idea is a good one , and i would be happy to contribute my 2 attempts worth of questions to you and anyone else for that matter.

I dont agree with scroggs about the bank of questions that the schools dish out to us as being sufficient because of the tests that i failed there were many questions that bore no relation to anything that was in the course notes that by now i have memorized!!

So how does one answer a question when the correct answer has never been published?

I would be very happy to swap my progress tests and final exam prep tests with another school , just to get another angle on the whole situation.

For the record to illustrate my point:

What should one do when they enter a rain ice triangle?

a. climb into warm air
b.decend
c. turn around
d. cant remember

My notes tell me everything about the triangle in perfect detail but not what to do.

I get several books from the library , written by well known authors BUTl they say climd into warmer air OR turn around!! what do you do..?

Having spent 1 year plus learning the questions and answers parrot fashion , i feel qualified to moan about this especially as there are only 2 ways to test your knowledge about things such as whether the compass indicates North or south when one accelerates west.

If you want my questions to practice with then let me know.

jess

Jessie,
WIth all due respect, I think you have hit the nail on the head. The idea is not to learn the questions and answers "parrot fashion" but to learn the topic. I used the feedback as a guide, not the "bible".

Jess, for the record, you're correct about the conflicting advice in textbooks on the rain ice question. We're convinced the answer should be to climb out of it because

1. The HMSO textbook on Met says exactly that

2. If you have noticed rain ice on the airframe you are already in trouble, if you turn around and fly out of it you will get at least as much icing again in the process.

Having read through my met notes a few times now, I have to say I have never come across something called a 'rain ice triangle'. Presumably it has something to do with rain ice, but what's triangular about it? What is it?

A perplexed TB :(

redsnail

i agree that their is no substitute for understanding the topics but the point of having a large pool of likely potential questions is so that the student can get a good idea of the question types that are put to us.

all the schools will have different feedback and lots of different questions so to pool them together would be an advantage for us.

personally i dont think its JUST enough to know the topics as the CAA ask questions where the answer has not been given in the course notes. Another example of this was:

What is the advantage of a ratiometer?

the notes will tell you what it is and what it does but not what its advantage is.The answer then becomes a guess.

accepted , that as more people remember the questions the more feedback that can be given by the schools. This is the reason why i think a question forum makes sense.

Alex, thanks for the rain ice answer maybe you could try the one above.

jess

Even given all the arguments for them on this thread, I'm still not sure that question banks are a good thing.

Token Bird - rain ice triangles are definitely explained in my notes from Bristol. Which school are you with? I'd go back and check your notes - I'm sure you'll find them in there somewhere. I tried, a few times, to explain them to you, but discovered I couldn't do it properly without a diagram. Maybe someone else will be able to have a go at it.

As for the question about what to do if you enter a rain ice triangle, shouldn't you be able to work it out without having the answer spoon-fed to you in your notes? What would you do if you encountered another unexpected meteorological condition in flight? What if the CAA had never asked a question about this particular condition that you found yourself in, and therefore the answer had never been explicitly given in our ATPL notes? Surely, as wannabe pilots, we should be able to use our knowledge, apply it to any situation, and decide on the best course of action - either in an aeroplane, or in an exam?

Granted that some of the textbooks appear to give misleading answers in this case, and the exact answer may be a matter of opinion to some extent. But that's why the pass mark is 75%, and not 100%. Ok, so 100% is taking things too far, but if the questions were all clear cut, the pass mark should be around 90%. The extra slack that we're given is to allow for some of the more ambiguous questions. I certainly wouldn't be happy flying with a pilot who only knew 75% of the syllabus... but we all know that it's possible to know much more than 75% of the syllabus and still not pass, if you're not able to figure out things which weren't explicity given in the syllabus. And I think that's right.

I know that this is extremely over-simplified, and I might change my mind once I've taken the exams myself in a couple of months time. But I've sat very few exams in my life where all the answers were completely clear-cut. And in the real world of practical aviation, this certainly isn't the case.

FFF
-------------

The advantage of a ratiometer is that the reading is unaffected by changes in supply voltage. Next?

Alex, what are you doing between 5th and 8th August? How much would I have to pay you to sit my exams for me? :D :D :D

FFF
---------------

I'll pay more!!
My passport photo is pretty blurred - they'd never know that you weren't me!

just a quickie to make comment on the freezing rain question as far as i know there are only two questions one being where would you find freezing rain and the afformentioned about correct actions and the answer to the latter is a definite turn around and get out of there as there is no guarantee that you would make the warmer air before such a mass of ice had built up that your climb rate had dropped to zero or worse.:rolleyes:

Do the maths. If you assume a temperature difference across a warm front of about 5º the difference in the freezing levels will be about 2500ft. With a frontal slope of about 1 in 150 the lateral extent will be 150 x 2500 ÷ 6080 = 62 nm. With these figures the rain ice triangle will be from nothing to 2500ft high and up to 62nm wide. Your choices are (a) climb a thousand feet or so or (b) get at least as much icing again as you already have if you turn around. As always, early recognition is important. If you are iced to the stage where you can't climb a thousand feet you are unlikely to be able to turn and fly out.

Alex is very right. If you've recognised it early, then turn around. Since the question never stated "early" you must assume you are in the thick of it.
So what to do?. If you turn around, you'll be in it for the same amount of time it took you to decide to turn around, by that stage, you dead.
At the turn around point you think, "hmmm, ice is bad now, we might be in trouble, lets turn around". Now you have to do the whole journy again!!!
Double the ice you have at the turn around point to give you an idea!.
Even worse is that your lift and stall speed are both xxxxed and you want to initiate a TURN!!!

Best course of action, a bit of power, climb at 1000/1500ft per minute and you'll be up into the "warmer air" in less than 3 minutes. No major control movements needed, no increased G loading, all happy. And you're boss will be slightly happier in that the passengers still get to where they are going.
Nuff said


Steve

Alex or Dick

If a wind was to flow down a cold hill at night and be influenced by the coriolis effect would this be catastrophic?
;)