ATPL advice (full-time)
 

Good Afternoon

I am due to be starting a full-time ATPL theory course soon and was just wondering if anyone had any advice on study techniques and how many notes to write.

I have been working hard for many years to pay for all of this training and i don't want to muck it up! I have also been out of education for over a decade. I've been practising forumla transposition and also trigonometry.

Apologies if this question has been asked countless times.

I wouldn't worry too much - O level maths (showing my age!) and physics is good enough, and formulas/trig is a good start.

Constant refreshing is the key, and an hour each day is way better than 7 hours on a Saturday. As to how many notes to write - that's up to you!

phil

Question banks, no brains involved :=:=

In all seriousness, the ATPL will just consist of hammering question banks but as you go through training generally you'll see that the information you need to know which is practical.
Don't stress too much over how much fluid and what PSI in the hydraulic system :ok:

If you don't want to muck it up, ignore RotationGearup's advice and put in the effort understanding the material instead of learning the questions. Make sure you understand the concepts to the best of your abilities - if necessary look beyond the material supplied (e.g. other books, Youtube, forums etc.). You'll find common concepts between subjects, making your life easier, and you'll be able to answer curveball interview questions in the future. Nothing in the ATPLs is particularly academically taxing, there's just a lot of material.

I would recommend using the question banks just before your exam only as a tool for checking your knowledge and getting used to the bizarre way some questions are asked. Don't rote learn the question as the regulator can change the questions (ask anyone who took Ops early this year!).

G

Er, yes, quite agree with that.

Phil

Not so hard at all. Just some basic physics concepts and SOH CAH TOA get things done. And YouTube is your friend.

From my experience so far, I've no idea how you would pass these exams without the question banks. I would go so far as to say that when you are studying for these exams you will imagine that passing the exams and understanding the material seem to mutually exclusive objectives.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but I'm a university graduate with good grades and mathematical ability so where am I going wrong?

I think that gaining a good understanding of the ATPL theory will be something that I will have to continually pursue throughout my career by combining the theory with practical experience.

I haven't taken a single exam yet, but I think that question banks are a must. And they are a must simply because to understand how questions are asked and what they really want to know. And sometimes they don't make sense. Especially over the last few months with EASA according to many.

Not only that, its a crazy amount of information to have to learn in such a short space of time, thats unless you want to spread it out over a few years which isn't possible for my circumstances. Nevertheless, this pace of learning is probably good preparation for any future ground course I'll have to take as part of a Type Rating.

For me its a case of using the material to learn the more complicated aspects of the ATPLs like some of the equations in Gen Nav and I'll be using the question banks to help remind me of the easier parts.

My point was that you should not use the question banks as a substitute for studying, because you will soon come unstuck at the tech interview, or even the check ride before that.

It is equally true that you won't pass the exams without using the banks, getting used to the EuroEnglish and which questions are factually wrong or use wrong terminology, of which there are many.

It helps if you are flying while you study - one of the hardest things for new students is to answer questions on advanced machinery when they are just struggling with steam driven instruments. Microsoft flight sim is a worthwhile investment - the 737 NG add-on for FS2004 is probably one of the best training ideas for the FMS.

To put things in perspective, about 30% of the questions can be answered with simple common sense and applying PPL knowledge. I would recommend that you study the material, use the questions as a flashcard process and carry on from there.

And Maverick - you make a good point about type rating training. If you change types regularly you will need to absorb a lot of information in a hurry and the more you learn now the better it will be.

And don't worry too much about Gen Nav - you can answer a lot of questions without doing any calculations at all.



Phil

Thanks Paco. To be honest, looking into the future this is what would worry me more! Naturally as you move on from the ATPLs and into the next elements, specifically the IR, I'd imagine even with prior prep it'll be a struggle to recall a lot of the ATPL theory come interview time.

You can be sure they won't be asking multi-choice questions :)

phil