knowledge test results coming back to haunt you

Judah wrote in message . ..

If you want to fare well during a no-gyro approach in IMC in a plane that
has no GPS, yeah probably.


Actually, in my 172 the only rule about the compass that's any use is,
"if the plane is in anything other than straight-and-level, the
compass is lying."

Let's be fair. The OP is a bratty, whiny kid who needs to improve his
attitude towards book-larnin' in general, but the written test isn't
all that great a device either. Glad I learned how to read a 2-needle
RMI, I see those all the time. Of course, no suggestion at all how to
use a handheld GPS to your benefit in the event of a vacuum failure
(possible) or electrical failure (likely) in the soup. Here we have a
incredibly useful tool that every pilot can afford, and yet there's a
wall of silence about its use because it's not approved.

On the Garmin 195 I've seen, it will show you the key parts of the
instrument approach, but it won't automatically slew the view to
heading-up because they want to discourage you from using it to fly
the approach. And the new nice Lowrance units I read won't show a
simulated glideslope on an instrument approach, even though they're
WAAS-equipped and so ought to be moderately accurate. OK, it's not
approved and the database may not be current, but when my electrical
system s&@!s the bed in actual, I'll be glad to know that the system
is set up to protect Garmin's ass instead of mine.

Anyway!

Best,
-cwk.

Personal experience and statements by several DPE's.

Richard Hertz wrote:

"Michelle P" wrote in message
link.net...


Chris,
Once the rating has been obtained very few will care. At my first
interview for a flying job. They never asked. They only asked for copies
of my certificates.





Your score on the written will affect how long your
oral will be, the lower the score the longer your oral.



Really? What do you base that statement on?





--

Michelle P ATP-ASEL, CP-AMEL, and AMT-A&P

"Elisabeth" a Maule M-7-235B (no two are alike)

Volunteer Pilot, Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic

Volunteer Builder, Habitat for Humanity

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 10:21:04 -0400, chris priest
wrote:

My summer job currently is
basically being a janitor at a RV park. My job is to pick up trash,
clean the bathrooms, sweep the floors; stuff like that. The biggest
thing I dislike about this job is how they instructed me to clean the
bathrooms. I have to spray the toilet bowl with chemical #5, then
chemical #7, then after a few minutes, I have to scrub the inside of the
bowl with brush #1 soaked in bleach. The the outside of the toilet with
brush #2 in bleach. After that I have to wipe it down with a wet rag,
then with a dry rag. Then I have to do it all over again to the rest of
the toilets. After this whole process the toilets have the exact same
appearance they did before I started. It just seems like I spent all
that effort for nothing. I could have achieved the same effect with a 30
second spray-n-wipe then be done with.

Oooohhhh, bad example Chris. The reason you were told to use the
various chemicals, along with bleach and two different brushes and the
wet and dry rags is because you are doing more than just making the
toilets look alike, you are killing germs. Test after test after test
have all come back with the same result, there are germs in public
restrooms and patrons can pick them up there. Your job is to kill
them, not make the toilets look the same.

Even though just barely passing the written still means passing it,
most pilot wannabees want to do better than barely adaquate.

Corky Scott

There's a bad smell here, could it be a Troll I wonder?
"chris priest" wrote in
message ...
tony roberts wrote:
I spent a long time contemplating your post.
I even started a very detailed response, and then deleted it, because it
seemed to me that an honest and impartial response was not what you were
truly seeking - so I'll just say this.
I truly believe that the rewards you get out of this will roughly equal
the effort that you put in. Just don't tell the interviewer that you
will not put in xyz because you actually have a life - because, believe
it or not, so does everyone else!
Most employers, particularly in your field seek excellence, but you may
get lucky and find one that is satisfied with mediocrity.
Otherwise - do you have a second career choice?


Tony
P.S. I'm not trying to **** you off - I'm trying to wake you up!


It just seems silly to me to have to spend all of that time studying
just to get a perfect score, when you can spend 80% less time studying
and still pass, giving you the same result. My summer job currently is
basically being a janitor at a RV park. My job is to pick up trash,
clean the bathrooms, sweep the floors; stuff like that. The biggest
thing I dislike about this job is how they instructed me to clean the
bathrooms. I have to spray the toilet bowl with chemical #5, then
chemical #7, then after a few minutes, I have to scrub the inside of the
bowl with brush #1 soaked in bleach. The the outside of the toilet with
brush #2 in bleach. After that I have to wipe it down with a wet rag,
then with a dry rag. Then I have to do it all over again to the rest of
the toilets. After this whole process the toilets have the exact same
appearance they did before I started. It just seems like I spent all
that effort for nothing. I could have achieved the same effect with a 30
second spray-n-wipe then be done with.

I sort of feel the same when I study for these knowledge tests. I don't
see any reason to go all out when a 70 is all thats required. Thats not
to say only 70% of all there is to know is only worth having.

I don't see the written exam tests as the SAT. To me the only point of
taking the test is to pass. The grade is irrelevant. Heck, when I took
my PAR, I remember skipping questions because I just didn't want to do
them. They were mostly those calculating problems that use the E6B which
I knew how to do, I just didn't see the point in laboring over the
problem, when i could have as easily skipped it. I must have did this a
lot, as you all know I came close to not passing. Now, mind you, if I
was in the air, I would have done the calculation without second
thought. It's all about putting the effort where it belongs.

Looking back, I probably had too much confidence. I'm part 141, and
during ground school I never got below a 85 on all of my tests, so I
have no doubt in my mind that I was going to pass that test. When I take
my instrument knowledge test sometime in the next week, I'll most likely
use a slightly diffrent approach, but I'm still not going in there with
a 100% as my goal. My goal will be to pass.

Is it really important to concentrate on a perfect on-center smooth
landing every time, or to just focus on landing each flight safely?

I don't think it matters what you scored on your tests so long as you passed
them without a whole bunch of retries.

For example, you could take a weekend course where you're guaranteed to pass
or you get your money back (you take the test on Sunday afternoon, right
there in the hotel conference room/classroom) and you'll do really well. A
week later, you'll remember half of it. Or, you could take a term-long
course at a community college or university that teaches you well, and you
might not do so well on your score but you're more likely to retain that
which you have learned.

If you failed your checkride half a dozen times, it'll appear in your
logbook, and you may have to explain yourself, but I'm not aware of any
situation where an interviewer will say "Well, you only scored 73% on your
private knowledge exam which you took 15 years and 500 hours ago when you
were 17, so I'm afraid we can't hire you."

-c


"chris priest" wrote in
message ...
This has been on my mind for a long time now. I am planning on pursuing
a career in aviation, whether that be in the military, corporate,
regional, the airlines, or possibly as just an instructor. Now when it
comes down to hiring, will the results of my private, instrument,
commercial etc. knowledge tests come in as a factor?

My dad who is at about the same place as me in training (he is only
doing it as recreation) keeps drilling to me that it is EXTREMELY
important to do as best as I can on these tests, because he is sure that
if I get a bad grade, then it will hurt me in the long run when it comes
time to get a job. Of course, when he took his instrument test two weeks
or so ago, he got a 100%. But then again he probably spent 15 hours a
week for 4 or 5 months studying (mildly exagerated), which I am just not
willing to do as I actually have a life. I personally haven't taken the
instrument test yet, but i got a 72 on my PAR, and when my dad found out
about my score, he (typically) threw a fit.

I personally feel that if the test results indeed do effect me in the
long run, it shouldn't. Even though I got a barely passing grade on my
private knowledge test, that doesn't;t necessarily mean I only know 72%
there needs to know about being a private pilot. If I was to retake the
test now, I guarantee I'd get at least a 90. That is to say I learned a
lot during my training, as I *did* afterall pass my checkride.

So does it really matter, or is my dad just being a over-achiever?

Andrew Gideon wrote
No, of course the score on your written exams isn't an absolute measure of
your quality as a pilot. But why not shoot for perfection? Why not be the
best possible, even if it involves actually working hard?

Because you could be working hard on something that actually matters.

FAA written tests contain a huge amount of worthless drivel. Why
bother studying that, when you could be learning about weather, the
systems in your airplane, or something else that could actually help
you.

I used to go with your approach. I would get the book, study hard,
and never score less than 95. On my last written (the ATP) I
realized, about halfway through, that I was wasting time. After I
took this test, I would never care about rest periods for supplemental
carriers, how many landings you could substitute for hours before you
could use published mins, or how many hours your dispatch was good for
if you were a flag carrier ever again. And then I realized how much
useless FAA trivia I was carrying in my head from all the other tests
I took, and how much more of it I had forgotten. And so I walked in,
took the test, and scored my lowest ever. But I passed.

If FAA written tests were actually well-designed and not full of trick
questions and useless trivia, I would feel differently. And if my
plane had turbines, it would burn kerosene. When it comes to
preparing for your oral and flight test, do your best. Learn to fly
to the privileges of the certificate, not just to pass a test. Learn
what you need to fly, not to convince a DE to give you a ticket. But
when it comes to the written, do the minimum and save your effort for
where it matters. Nobody cares about your score on the written.

The FAA does keep those results, and they will release those numbers
if you authorize it. If the people doing the hiring really wanted to
know how you did, they would have you sign a release form and get them
from the FAA. But they never do.

Michael

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:24:49 -0400, chris priest
wrote:

snipped
I didn't go in there and skip every question, as that would have been
poor risk management. I only skipped those questions which I knew would
not effect my ultimate goal which is, and always has been passing. When
I did the SAT, I did not skip any questions because that would have
lowered my score and the goal there is to get the best score you can.
The FAA knowledge tests are not the SAT.

Now on the other hand, if the grade is something that could come back to
haunt me come time to get a job, then I would say what I did was wrong.
That was the whole point of this thread. Will the grade effect me? If so
then I'll try to get a 100 next time. If it doesn't, then I won't sweat
it. Either way I'm going to pass the test and begin my training aloft
where I'll cement the things the things in my mind that I didn't already
know. Isn't that the whole point in doing the oral part of the checkride?

The goal of passing of a pretty low goal. Most of the folks I know go
in with a goal of acing the test. Most didn't achieve that, but
that's largely irrelevant. In the flying arena, striving for
perfection is a good thing.

At first I thought this was a serious post, but it's sounding more and
more like a troll (I hope).
Rich Russell

"Corky Scott" wrote in message The reason you were told to use the
various chemicals, along with bleach and two different brushes and the
wet and dry rags is because you are doing more than just making the
toilets look alike, you are killing germs.

Perhaps the camp director noticed a slacker amongst the workers and directed
that slacker to mix the ammonia with the bleach. Figured he wouldn't be
using those brain cells anyway.

D.

In article , chris priest wrote:
Is it really important to concentrate on a perfect on-center smooth
landing every time, or to just focus on landing each flight safely?

Yes, it is really important to concentrate on that perfect on-centre
smooth landing (even if it's inevitable you won't always get it). If you
are practised at trying to reach perfection, the day the conditions are
difficult you're much more likely to make a safe landing instead of
rolling the plane into a ball.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Is it really important to concentrate on a perfect on-center smooth
landing every time, or to just focus on landing each flight safely?

I land on short runways, in very high density altitude, that are 25 feet
wide (sometimes with a ditch down the runway edge). So - answer your own
question. Any fool can land off centre when the runway is 125 ft wide -
when it's 25 ft wide - well, that takes a bit more precision.

Tony
--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE