Prior to exams
 

What are the basic methods of question bank usage prior to exams and during GS?

Did you for example start a week before exams, during the GS...etc

Personally I started hitting the question banks about a month prior to the exams, making notes of the ones I got wrong and deciding if it was a stupid mistake or whether I really didn't know that subject well enough. If it were the latter I'd re-read the relevant chapters.

And repeat... until I was getting pretty much 100% in the question banks.

By the time you show up for groundschool you should be ready for the exams, it's just to clear up any principles you can't get your head round (let's use lambert charts and gyros as common examples!).

It all depends on how good your mind is at remembering such huge volumes of information. I could just learn each subjects questions once and remember about 90-95% of them. Then the other 5-10% I just marked and concentrated on them only. Its different for everyone, some persons need to go over an entire subjects questions numerous times before they can remember them. A good indicator in my opinion is History. A subject which requires one to remember copious amounts of information. If you were good at History in school then your mind is most likely good at remembering large quantities of information and the questions shouldnt require huge amounts of time to study and retain.

It also depends on the type of question bank that you are using.

If you are using one that contains only questions and answers then there is little point in starting earlier than a month or so before the exams.

If however you are using one that includes a large number of detailed explanations, including step-by-step solutions to calculations, then you should use it throughout your course.