Monday, October 27, 2008

Knowledge Exam - Passed!

Went in tonight and fiiiiiiinally got the written taken care of. My procrastination skills are top-notch when I put my mind to it. Anyway, I did very well. While I didn't get the 100% that I was aiming for (because I would have had half the $80 fee refunded - nice little incentive there) I only missed a couple questions.

I got to the airport and realized I had forgotten my logbook (inside which was the endorsement from Dave for me to take the exam) and had to drive back home to get it... so from the start it didn't seem like I had any extra luck on my side. However, I really did luck out when it came to the test questions. In every online practice test I took (which uses the exact same randomly-selected questions from the FAA test bank) there were quite a few weight and balance and navigational calculation problems. By the grace of something, I did not get a single one on the exam tonight. Most of the questions ended up being about the FARs and there were a lot that referenced sectional charts and VOR navigation. What that added up to was a very quick test - it took me about 45 minutes in total.

My only real beef is that the FAA doesn't allow you to see the exact questions you missed. Instead you are given codes for the subject areas in which you answered a question wrong. The problem with this is that they can be ridiculously vague. Mine were to do with airspace and aircraft performance, which are two areas that contain a huuuuge amount of information. I'd much prefer to see if I just made a stupid mistake in answering a question wrong - especially since I am quite confident in my knowledge in those areas. Griping aside, it went well and I got a very good score so all that's left is a little more solo practice (I just want to go over some things on my own) and then the checkride.

8 comments:

  1. CONGRATS!!!

    I know what a relief it is to have the written out of the way.

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  2. Congratulations! How were you doing on the practice tests going into the real thing?

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  3. Congrats! I'm with Paul, how did your scores on the practice tests compare with your real test score?

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  4. Thanks guys!

    I'd say it was a fair correlation. I've been taking the practice tests online over the past year thru Sportys and MyWrittenExam.com, plus have used the ASA Test Prep book and Rod Machado's Workbook... so I was thoroughly familiar with all the questions, and then some. I'm pretty sure that I have seen them all by now. Due to that, there certainly weren't any surprised in what or how anything was asked.

    Anyway, I averaged 90% to 100% on the practice exams - usually based more on how much time I spent taking them (i.e. if I was rushing through one at work) than anything. So the actual score is right in line with that.

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  5. Ugh, mine wasn't that great, but I passed...and that's all that matters to me. As the guys at the airport said, "you passed, they don't print your score on your license, so don't sweat it"

    I *am* going to sweat my check ride on Friday though! LOL Good luck with yours when you take it!

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  6. I'm sure I'll be stressing plenty over my checkride as well, no matter how confident I feel in having learned everything.

    Good luck on Friday - we'll both be official pilot folk quite soon!

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  7. Way to go! Can you hear the music? Not too much left to do now. Keep it up!

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