Probably a good thing that actual understanding is now required as the copyright issue might prove a difficult hurdle to overcome.
A legal minefield for the ATOs?

Having to understand the logic by asking the question WHY.

Prior to JAR when the CAA set the exams the papers were separate for engines, as only piston engines was required for licence issue. Jet engines was only required if you wanted a turbo/jet engine type rating.

PPSC notes were produced by Mike Longhurst, although the Rolls Royce jet engine book was essential reading.
His question bank was 210 questions. I eventually learnt the correct responses to them in a day and scored 90% in the exam.

In the end, it was nothing to do with understanding the subject and asking the question WHY, simply a “Pavlov dog“ response to the question and recognising the answer.

It wasn’t until the type rating did the mists clear and you began to understand WHY.....

My view is that the State’s function is to ensure that candidates have a good basic knowledge, no more

I’d bet every penny of my lifetime earnings that if you studied the content meticulously for five years and took someone who sat and just learned the answers for six weeks that the bank learner would wipe the floor with you.

That’s how it always has been, and always will be unfortunately.

They have been under pressure from airlines for a more rounded package, hence ksa 100. As mentioned, I don’t agree with it

Thanks for the replies guys, it seems we have had a stroke of luck and we will now be doing the old syllabus by the skin of our teeth. Unfortunately there are many more who will not be so fortunate as us. I did end up speaking to ATPLGS who where extremely helpful and they did tell me they where now working flat out to introduce new functions in their app's to isolate out old questions or highlight old questions think they also mentioned they have some updating of questions going on as we speak...this will hopefully be rolled out in a few weeks. But obviously they are only able to do what they can with what info they get from people taking the exams...a little worrying for those people!

VariablePitchP

I'd also like that bet :)

when are these changes actually starting? I'm about to start sitting my exams in poland

It depends - the UK has just put it back till the end of March - Sweden has already started. Makes no difference to us.

Have the QBs come along at all in the past year?

...Talking about studying the new syllabus, anyone knows anything about new CBTs and Textbooks based on the new EASA syllabus? Tried to email some well known CBT producers a few times regarding that, they didn't reply for some reason (it was during COVID peak though). Thanks.

You have no responses, mirkoni, so I'll chip in. I have changed my point of view on this. Having now received quite a bit of feedback on the new syllabus exams I think they actually are fit for purpose, at least the EASA ones which have been corrected and updated over the last year, I'm not sure about the UK CAA versions which have not. There are questions asked that are outside the syllabus but not many, less than 10% probably and 'outside the syllabus' is a matter of degree in most cases. 'Just outside the syllabus' may be a matter of interpretation and acceptable (well not to a pedant), obviously 'wildly outside the syllabus' is not.

I now have the view that the disastrous early results were mostly the fault of the ATOs who did not properly assess how the exams were likely to change, and therefore didn't teach their classes properly. Of course they aren't going to admit this and they are busy blaming everybody else, so it must remain just an old man's opinion. Combined with this some clearly haven't updated their training material either at all, or at least properly. One hears reports of students who just haven't heard at all about quite basic concepts. On the other hand some ATOs such as FTE Jerez clearly have prepared properly and have seen a reduction in percentage scores but NOT a significant reduction in pass rates, yet other ATOs have near 100% fails.

As far as question banks go, yes, we are coming on. There's a lot of information out there if you cast our net widely. May I recommend the discord server...link available from the facebook group ATPL theory students EASA 2020.