Preparing for Airframe Tests. O&P's and Writtens

Part 1: General and Airframe Writtens

I had a two-week break between the end of Airframe classes, and the beginning of Powerplant classes.

It was the goal of myself, and a couple of other students, to get our written tests done, and or O&Ps done.

Three of us were successful and now have our Airframe ratings. A couple more students are well on their way to getting there. Our success has been encouraging to them, but not nearly as encouraging as the information I am about to give you, dear internet.

When I started studying for my Airframe Writtens, I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to get my ass in a chair and memorize questions and their appropriate answer. I had to do this until I could correctly answer over 70% of any random set of questions given to me, and do this with some level of consistency.

Our school has some outdated test prep software. I didn't know it was outdated when I was using it to practice, but I found out when I went to take my written tests.

The General Written was by far the more difficult of the two. Basic Electricity was on there, and BE really, really blows. There were a few other sections which provided a decent amount of trouble, but they were nothing a little (lot of) studying couldn't take care of.

Before class ended, I was consistently getting high 80s on both the Airframe and General practice tests. So I registered to take the tests from some nice folks who have opened up a flight center down the road.

I got a 77 on my General and 88 on the Airframe.
I was blown away. I was elated that I passed, but a 77? Really?
I came to find out that another student, who I think is pretty good at taking tests, got a 70 on the General.

It seems that we were practicing for a test not at all similar to the one we got.  But, we both passed.

Want to know how to pass the General and Airframe Writtens? My advice is not complicated, and consists of only two parts.

The first tip I can give you is to go to an FAA FAR Part 147 school. You can probably pass these tests without it, but you won't have any idea what the hell is going on, which means you won't know what you're doing when you're expected to do it on the job. And that's a bad thing.

So go to a 147 school. If you can't then the tests are going to be absurdly difficult for you.

Tip two is to sit down and study the shit out of whatever test guide material you have. We used Jeppesen textbooks and study guides for our classes, and I think AMT has a similar line of books. If you don't use a study guide for your classes, then use your google-fu to find the FAA's bank of test questions.

They publish the questions (all three bazillion of them), but they don't publish the answers. Don't try to cheap out here. The $40 you try to save not buying a second-hand study guide is going to cost you $300 when you fail your General and Airframe Writtens  because you couldn't study properly.

So, in summary: Go to a 147 school. Then study the shit out of the study guide. This is the best way to do this, and you'll be pretty much guaranteed success. Plus, when you finish, you'll have a lot more confidence.

Now on to part 2: The Airframe and General O&Ps