Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

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By archerflyer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872042
With the e-exams being in place for a reasonable period of time now & the lack of question bank, I've been curious as to the pass rate & how other students are getting on with them.

I'm aware there's been an article published with data on the new ATPL pass rate, below, & keen to understand what the PPL success looks like:

https://www.ftnonline.co.uk/2021/09/20/ ... lure-rate/

so far, I've taken 6 exams and average pass rate of 90% with 1 retake (94% without the retake)

I'm also keen to understand what tools people are using for study and what they find works/doesn't work for them.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872087
I've only taken 2 so far.

I squeaked Ops with a disappointing 75%. I'd worked really hard for it but with only 12 questions from a large question bank I suppose there's an element of luck. I found I had to re-read 2 questions to make sense of them even though it's multiple choice! I seriously thought I'd get a comfortable pass so was a bit rattled to only get 75%. One was a silly error on my part, the other two I didn't have a clue, narrowed it down by common sense and picked wrong. Hey ho.

Air Law I only got one wrong and despite the (poor) 'feedback' to direct you to the relevant learning objective I still don't know which I got wrong. The feedback pointed to Hot Spots but I definitely answered that correctly, so that's a slight worry. Nothing I can do about it though.

I've used a combo of Pooleys / AFE for starters then I joined EasyPPLGroundschool and have worked through the course slides, which are very good and comprehensive. The huge benefit of EasyPPLGroundschool is the mini tests and the mock exams. The mocks throw up different questions on each attempt so you can cover a lot.

I'm starting Comms and Human Factors now :mrgreen:

What issues or surprises have you found?
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By archerflyer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872099
my main pitfall so far was feeling overly confident after moving onto the air pilot's manual question and answer banks (after the books of course) - passed their papers 100% and then failed an exam! Change of tack & going stronger now.

what do you use for question backs?

which resource do you find most helpful for studying? do you ever try youtube videos to compliment the books?
By archerflyer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872100
I've also found in 2 exams so far, that I'm essentially asked the same question but worded differently on 2 questions.
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By tr7v8
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#1872106
7 exams done now from 9. First two were on paper. That was AIr Law & Operational Proc. The other 5 have been e-exams. By far the hardest was Human Performance which was a way over the top English comprehension test. Best was Comms with 100%
I use Pooley's APM & their Q&A books & more importantly EasyPPLGround school. The latter is by far the best revision material and seems to align with the idiots at the CAA writing the questions.
I currently have Met & Nav to do. Revising Met at the mo & finding it hard going. I hated it in Geography at school & it isn't any better now :evil:
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872111
Oh, no, don't say HP is so hard, I was confident my A-Level Human Biology would get me through most of it but not if it really a test of language skills!! :lol:

@tr7v8 , could you do an hour's F2F groundschool to embed Met?

The guy who invigilated for me last week waxed lyrical about Met and I think I'll ask for an hour to brush up after I've studied what I can from EasyPPL and Pooleys.
Having a real life person going over it and being able offer quick memory tips will be well worth it, andI liked his explanations after the exams when I raised a couple of queries, so I think it'll be money well spent.
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872124
T6Harvard wrote:Oh, no, don't say HP is so hard, I was confident my A-Level Human Biology would get me through most of it but not if it really a test of language skills!! :lol:

@tr7v8 , could you do an hour's F2F groundschool to embed Met?

The guy who invigilated for me last week waxed lyrical about Met and I think I'll ask for an hour to brush up after I've studied what I can from EasyPPL and Pooleys.
Having a real life person going over it and being able offer quick memory tips will be well worth it, and I liked his explanations after the exams when I raised a couple of queries, so I think it'll be money well spent.

I read & write as a super technical role for a living, things like Tenders & Requests for Quotes etc in IT.
2 or 3 of the HP questions had me really scratching my head as to what the hell they were actually after. The worst was a question of around 10 sentences of what was a scenario. And at the end of that I could only guess what they were after as an answer. What genius wrote it had in mind I have no idea.

Yes seriously thinking about getting some tuition on Met. A local microlight guy does a session on Met I may engage him. The last time he did it I was away working unfortunately.
Linda Wheeler on face book does a ground school. But she is based at Gerards Cross which is the other side of the M25 to me so a real pain. But that maybe an option.
I'll carry on with EasyPPL and if it doesn't click then I'll pursue training elsewhere. Currently getting fails at around 60ish % This is what happened with Comms, then suddenly it all worked & I found the exam easier than EasyPPL dummy exams!
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By Micromouse
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872193
tr7v8 wrote:
T6Harvard wrote:Oh, no, don't say HP is so hard, I was confident my A-Level Human Biology would get me through most of it but not if it really a test of language skills!! :lol:

@tr7v8 , could you do an hour's F2F groundschool to embed Met?

The guy who invigilated for me last week waxed lyrical about Met and I think I'll ask for an hour to brush up after I've studied what I can from EasyPPL and Pooleys.
Having a real life person going over it and being able offer quick memory tips will be well worth it, and I liked his explanations after the exams when I raised a couple of queries, so I think it'll be money well spent.

I read & write as a super technical role for a living, things like Tenders & Requests for Quotes etc in IT.
2 or 3 of the HP questions had me really scratching my head as to what the hell they were actually after. The worst was a question of around 10 sentences of what was a scenario. And at the end of that I could only guess what they were after as an answer. What genius wrote it had in mind I have no idea.

Yes seriously thinking about getting some tuition on Met. A local microlight guy does a session on Met I may engage him. The last time he did it I was away working unfortunately.
Linda Wheeler on face book does a ground school. But she is based at Gerards Cross which is the other side of the M25 to me so a real pain. But that maybe an option.
I'll carry on with EasyPPL and if it doesn't click then I'll pursue training elsewhere. Currently getting fails at around 60ish % This is what happened with Comms, then suddenly it all worked & I found the exam easier than EasyPPL dummy exams!

I’d deffo go to Linda if you can, she got me through all of my exams in a week. Stressful and hard but well worth it.

Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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By TrickyWoo
#1872275
Apologies for longer post than intended :-)

[Edited to add a TL/DR - if you're new to the e-exams and using EasyPPL then if you get consistent 90% on the full tests then I'd say you're all set for success based on my recent 7 exam experience]

Done 7 of 9 here since July also with EasyPPL backed up with YTube (includng US children's program videos for some weather theory!)

Met was the tough one for me - bought posters from AFE to put up, took LOTS of notes from the EPPL question bank when an answer wasn't understood and read a book on weather. Studied around 2 to 3 weeks with many country walks trying to work our B Ballot and types of cloud etc.

I wouldn't take any exam unless getting 90% on ALL EasyP test. Exams themselves lasted between 10 and 15 mins. ('These two are obv wrong. This one could be correct. Nope this is the one. Deffo. Then mark any not 100% sure of and revisit them. Done. Instant result via email from Mr CAA)

All passed at 90+ except Ops which I took a punt on and deservedly failed. Retook and alles gut.

HP for me was....well tbh it was simple. I read the Pooley's half-book and took the test. Perhaps there are others with different questions but the questions on mine were 'far from challenging.'

Planning and Nav left to do. I'm flying 3 days a week on Navs and have bought a CX-3 flight calculator. I did eventually bother to learn the whizz-wheel (thanks You Tube) but I shan't be using it. Was ok to get the triangle of velocities visualised (thanks this forum!) but beyond that of limited used so far.

btw for navex I'm using 1:500 for the planning and PLOG but 1:250 folder up with bulldog clips and personal VRPs marked for local flying to find waypoints I know (MUCH easier and reassuring after I earlier mistook Brize for Kidlington!!!) and no SkyDemon yet but I will 100% use it on solo navs along with EC. I know it's a no-no for the test and I like maps anyway so no dramas there and I'll be skilled up for the test.
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872284
TrickyWoo wrote:Apologies for longer post than intended :-)

[Edited to add a TL/DR - if you're new to the e-exams and using EasyPPL then if you get consistent 90% on the full tests then I'd say you're all set for success based on my recent 7 exam experience]

Met was the tough one for me - bought posters from AFE to put up, took LOTS of notes from the EPPL question bank when an answer wasn't understood and read a book on weather. Studied around 2 to 3 weeks with many country walks trying to work our B Ballot and types of cloud etc.

Planning and Nav left to do. I'm flying 3 days a week on Navs and have bought a CX-3 flight calculator. I did eventually bother to learn the whizz-wheel (thanks You Tube) but I shan't be using it. Was ok to get the triangle of velocities visualised (thanks this forum!) but beyond that of limited used so far.

Principles of flight I took twice and I hang my head in shame as an aeromodeller and having trained/worked on the full size.
You'll possibly need the whizz wheel for FP & P, I did on mine & hadn't learnt it so failed that question.
I agree if you're getting good passes on EasyPPL then you're good to go. At £55 you can't afford to fail many & that makes EasyPPL look a bargain.
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By andynxn
#1872297
I did HP today, and got 100%. I found it fine, you do have to read the questions over and over. There were probably two questions i had to really think about and do the elimination game for the silly answers. Then the correct answer sort of stood out. There was at least 2 questions on emergency management within the flight crew, which i had not really revised, but again the answer were logical once you broke them down. I got one question on the symptoms of hyperventilation, a question which was someone’s story about following VOR and heading in the wrong direction (the answer to this was in the question), the question asked why did he go wrong. Answer relying purely on VOR and not visual referencing to the chart... I did have to stop and think it cant be that obvious, but it was.

Onto Met now, this is one im not looking forward too.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872317
Very helpful, thanks All.

I've been getting 90 - 100 % on EasyPPLGroundschool on the subjects I've concentrated on (as I said, starting with reading up Pooleys etc then moving onto E.PPL) so I should be booking a couple more fairly soon.
Of course I'm going for the ones I find most straight forward first :mrgreen:
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872335
T6Harvard wrote:Very helpful, thanks All.

I've been getting 90 - 100 % on EasyPPLGroundschool on the subjects I've concentrated on (as I said, starting with reading up Pooleys etc then moving onto E.PPL) so I should be booking a couple more fairly soon.
Of course I'm going for the ones I find most straight forward first :mrgreen:

I chose the "easy" ones hence having Met & Nav left. Although I was told to leave Nav until I was doing it.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872345
I bet you found A/c Technical easy! I haven't looked at that yet, although in a past life I had to pick up various bits of technical knowledge for a variety of stuff and I always found it fascinating, so I should be able to grasp it :D
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