Hello! I am a new student at ATP with a start date of September. I wanted to get ahead and get all of my written’s out of the way. I was somewhat curious about the best way to prepare for them, and where to garner my information. Are the GIS study modules enough or should I use another third party in order to access the information and reading? I have already purchased Sporty. However, I noticed that it just contained practice tests and questions.
Thank you very much any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Parker you are correct. The same is true for the Sheppard Air test prep we recommend for the other 5 required exams. This is also one of our FAQs and one that we get the most pushback on.
So here’s the thing. You haven’t started you flight training yet and much of the info on the Knowledge exams doesn’t make much sense and is difficult to follow with no context. It’s for this reason is you search this forum regarding the writtens you’ll see that the best, time proven method of study for success is simply rote memorization. This obviously begs the question “hey but don’t I need to learn this stuff?”. The answer is yes and you will, once you begin your flight training when you’ll actually be able to follow the reasons for the info and how it applies.
This also helps you to begin mentally preparing yourself for airline training. The first rule of airline training is Trust the Program. You’ve decided to train with ATP, the largest and most successful flight school in the country. If you trust them with your training you need to follow and trust the methods.
Adam
Parker,
Just to echo what Adam has already said, the best way to do well quickly on these written exams is rote memorization. Read through Brady’s write up that Adam linked to see the best way to complete them! The GIS videos are meant to follow along with your training, and while they might cover some material that is on the written exams, you won’t be prepared by just watching them.
With that being said, if you have some time and are really eager to learn the material, I always recommend King’s Schools for the PAR. You’d have to pay for it out of pocket, since ATP no longer offers it, but I think it is well worth the investment. When I was a lead instructor, it was something I recommended to every new start private student. It’s probably 30-40 hours of well made videos that have you answer the related practice test questions after each video. It worked really well for me before I started at ATP. I felt that I actually knew some of the material (even though I didn’t have the connection to the flight training yet). Then I took tons of practice tests before taking the actual test. Once I started training, I just had to connect the material to the actual flying. Not a requirement, but it is something that helped me and my students.
For the remainder of the tests, just use Sheppard air and hammer through the questions and practice tests. Instrument will feel like a foreign language if you try and learn the material with no application. How do you know when you are ready for these tests? You should be getting 90%+ on practice tests consistently before you even think about taking the actual test. Typically you’ll score 5-10% lower on the actual test. I actually made myself score 3 100’s before I took the real test. You don’t have to be that crazy, but considering the test result is one of the first things your examiner will judge you on, having a great score is an excellent first impression. Prioritize the score over rushing to complete all of the tests.
Trust the process!
Roscoe