Emir wrote:
I had the same 12 years ago when attending IR exams. Basically our tests were random subset of same QB used for ATPL(A) and while ATPL students had e.g. 45 questions for some subject, IR applicants had 30.
When I renewed my IR 9 years ago, the situation was similar. I actually didn’t find any questions that were “wrong” in the sense that there were more than one or no answer alternative which was correct, but there were a couple of questions that didn’t belong. Most notably global climatology – I got one question about winds in east Asia.
I had questions re: Transport category aircraft instruments on a CBIR exam, for example.
I had the same 12 years ago when attending IR exams. Basically our tests were random subset of same QB used for ATPL(A) and while ATPL students had e.g. 45 questions for some subject, IR applicants had 30.
Peter wrote:
Arj1 – was yours sat in the UK?
@Peter, yes, I’ve made a comment at the end of the exam with a lot of details provided, so they could have actually added me some points for that.
I’ve commented on around 5-6 questions over my 7 CBIR exams.
Some contained things from the wrong banks (ATPL for example) and some were very ambiguous, so I’ve answered all possible interpretations in the comments section.
That was precisely the sort of question which everybody was told to appeal if found in the JAA 7-exam IR tests.
Then when the CBIR came, the QB syllabus (called “learning objectives” in Euro-speak) had changed slightly, but (I was told by someone in the system) nobody could dig up anybody with the knowledge to produce a new QB so they just hacked one together, again using the ATPL QB as a starting point. So some 737 etc questions got back in…
Arj1 – was yours sat in the UK?
I had questions re: Transport category aircraft instruments on a CBIR exam, for example.
The FAA system has around 10-15% questions being road tested, and once they are satisfied they are technically good questions which actually test a knowledge objective, they get incorporated into the QB. In this way the QB is renewed over time. While you answer these questions you are only graded on the ‘real’ 90% of questions.
You also use real AFM/POH for M&B and Performance across different types. Not the synthetic BOingBus used in the EASA system.
I did mine (UK pre EASa) so far back it was schoolroom style, no multiple choice, and you got tested on your workings/calculations. You had to write out little paragraphs in long hand explaining concepts. It would have been helpful to have Peter around for the electronic system questions.
Still remember one set involved a 707 going from Lagos to Rio.
I have some examples of poor questions here and some recent examples from the UK CAAs scandalous “infringer punishment procedure” here.
When my A&P/IA was doing his EASA66 (using his A&P work experience as a credit, but still had to do the written exams) he showed me some of the questions in the electrical syllabus, and I was appalled how useless and wrong they were. They were written by someone who was literally clueless about electrics.
The ATPL QB (question bank) was generally confidential. The FTOs collected the bulk of it by assigning each student going into the exam room to memorise one question and then an FTO man with a clipboard stood outside the exam room and wrote them down before they were forgotten. So the big money-making FTOs produced their in-house copies of the QB. And nobody had any incentive to fix anything because each profited directly from their students getting better grades sitting the crap material than another FTOs students. It is same with open source software, which ranges from a buggy pile of crap to something “OK but needs a lot of fixes before it can be used commercially”, and the fixes almost never get contributed back because the business case is to not do that. Around 2007, two groups of students did a “Freedom of Information” legal challenge in Denmark and Belgium and got the real JAA QB, and later it was translated into English. This QB has since been “improved” but only in countries where somebody in the national CAA actually understood the subject (Germany and UK foremost I think). This QB has always been full of crap and almost the only way to pass it was by heavy computer study.
To finish it nicely, if you see some crap Q in an exam paper, you are allowed to report it and contest it (and get it credited) but you not allowed to record it so how the hell are you going to report it?? The system is stacked against you. In the CAA CAS bust exam (link above) it is possible to take a screenshot, because you are at home, but if you try to get it credited, the CAA busts chief (who is almost impossible to contact, and never replies to emails or letters) tells you to get stuffed, so again you get nowhere.
I don’t think anything has ever changed or ever will change in this business. The questions are prepared by people who don’t fly; they may be FTO lecturers (who also don’t fly). Reportedly, the JAA QB creation was, like the Eurofighter, distributed around the EU, and e.g. the Air Law was done by a Portugese ATCO! No “real pilot” will ever get anywhere near the flying QB and no “real engineer” will ever get anywhere near the maintenance QB. And as I say above the FTO / ground school business case is stacked against any improvement because the crap there is the more money these companies get. They need to skim 80-100k off each customer, and we all know the CPL/IR flight training cost is only about 30k-40k.
I had an altimetry question during my ATPL exams in which the answer one would select among the available options would depend on whether 27 or 30 ft was used as equivalent to 1 hPa. You could argue: “well then use the more accurate 27 ft, of course.” Sure but the same exam had other questions in which one would obtain one of the available options only if using 30 ft rather than 27.
I also used to keep a folder full of examples of terribly worded ATPL exam questions. Sometimes none of the available answer were correct, sometimes several or even all of them were…
I had to calculate if the M&B was within limits without having the empty weight/arm info of the airplane…
Newbie wrote:
You’re in a single engine piston aircraft:
….
Altitude: 9500ft
TAS: 250kt
I am more interested where I can buy a (presumably turbocharged) SEP that cruises at 250kt at 10k / 210kt IAS, because it would do around 300kt at FL240… why bother with a turbine.
Or do they mean best glide speed? In that case, it would stall around 150kt or so, perhaps it is a Starfighter, which was single engine but a jet. Don’t think that would manage a glide gradient of 11%, though, it glides about as well as an anvil.
