Which 3nd party application makes this claim if I may ask?

Genghis the Engineer

you have a TS in front of your T/O runway what would be the correct action to do?
1/ Delay TO
2/ Wx radar tilt -15°
3/ use Flex T/O
4/ Turn off PWS <—— correct

I remember a question in Human Factors asking to define a group of family celebrating the mother's 40th birthday. How the heck is that related to flying an airliner is beyond me.

Yes, I had this question in the actual exams, and yes it affects the final results.

I think we should start a new thread, solely based on the stupidest questions we have seen on the exam 😊

The answer was first category group or something like that. Go figure.

There are also those questions that are just strange.

I had a question which asked for the function of the corpuscles in HPL. The answers all seemed plausible as they were all functions of different things in the body. Is there a need to include such rare/ seldom used vocabulary when so many who sit the exams are not native/ fluent English speakers? I thought we were studying to fly a plane and not medicine.

I was very thankful the CAA I did my exams at had some pretty hefty dictionaries with some of the ludicrous vocabulary used. You had to be careful though as you'd break your foot if you dropped one of them.

It's definition 2a if you don't know - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corpuscles

I do not understand this (younger generation) need for question banks. The purpose of an examination is to find, by asking a number of selected questions, if you know and understand the material detailed in the syllabus. . To know and understand the material in the syllabus you need to study that material and probably also engage with others who have the knowledge and experience to tutor you.

To my mind trying to "pass" by learning from a bank of potential questions is highly unprofessional.

Would you apply the same process to the practical skills of flying?

to MGAHAN:
"...by asking a number of selected questions..."
In my opinion, here is the main problem. Who is going to ask them? Live person or computer?
If you use a computer, then you need a question bank (it may be secret or available to anyone, that's another story).
If you use live examinator to test your candidates, then you run into the problem of personal judgement. Every teacher has at least several questions, which are very difficult to answer. And every examinator can make your life very difficult on the exam. Yes, normally examinators are reasonable people, but every rule has an exception. You said you are from younger generation... now imagine being tested by 70-years old guy, who seems not to like you from the moment he saw you :-)

Go and try the "younger generation" questions, then tell us what you think about them.

mgahan - this is partly a problem with the modern education system and the unrealistic generation of expectations (and I'm sure some schools provide answers to get their numbers up) and the fact that you cannot pass these exams on knowledge alone, as evidenced by the number of CFIIs we have dealt with who went straight in.

mgahan

It's simple, very simple. The questions do not reflect the learning objectives, at all. Two head of very important European Ground School have just said it multiple times in this topic. Why is it hard for you to understand?

Dropping my 2 cents, I am still confused at why these theory exams use question banks. Why not emulate school exams like HKDSE and just make a new exam every month or two, with standardized sessions and new questions?

Even as (I consider) an avgeek myself after checking some question banks some of the questions are just uggh stupid. I can't figure out how would knowing the density of JET-A1 makes you able to save a crippled aircraft.

Try This
 

Which system is required in order for the FMS to control vertical navigation?
1. Pitch Controller
2. Auto Throttle
3. Electronic Flight Bag
4. Flight Director

Read an article about it a few years back, in a swedish magazine.... cause they have a lot of forests.

Quite interresting, but the rule of thumb was to fly the aircraft to the ground before flaring, never flare above treetops.... difference is the angle you impact the ground at.... once you've avoided the trees ofcourse.

Exams may not be fair, I once got 3 questions changed from "not correct" to "correct", and an additional two was met with the reply: "Leave it, you've passed now". I decided a pass would be ok.

PFD

Auto throttle

So can you explain how an aircraft without auto throttle does VNAV? Or how Autothrottle is able to maintain VNAV ALT? Remember we are talking CAT aircraft usually A320 or 737 sizes minimum.

I'll take a guess.

4. Flight director

Sleepsleep

That is simply basic knowledge that is needed every single day on the line. Remember, energy content and therefore measurement in the aircraft is in weight, fuel bill comes in volume.

Sleepsleep

There's plenty of nonsense, particularly my pet hate of terminology questions, in PPL/CPL/ATPL TK exams, but that isn't an example. Personally I must do a calculation involving fuel density most weeks, and this sort of built-in knowledge is important for carrying out quick sanity checks on my calculations, vital in ensuring I don't make gross errors.

(0.82 for AVTUR, 0.715 for AVGAS, and no I didn't need to look that up).

"I'm sure most airline pilots would struggle to answer some of those questions ...."

LOL! This is from one of my students:

Bumped into an ex Cathay Dragon guy at Skyborne while doing exams (lot of crews back in the U.K. and having to convert HK licenses). Long story short having kept in touch, two current A330 crew failed multiple exams in the first batch they sat from QB2020 and they have nothing else to do apart from study.