Grid navigation is a prime example of an area of atpl study that is often overworked as students don't understand it. But is not better to spend those 10 hours ensuring you have a good understanding of the other 99% of the syllabus? We are not saying skip past everything you don't understand, just sometimes its might be more beneficial to take the risk and move on and hope the questions don't come up. after all, you still have a 25% chance of getting it right if its a multi-choice
Be organised, and have set days for each subject so that you are spending a good amount of time on each area, especially as you get closer to the exams you want to be focusing on all the subjects in smaller spaces of time to ensure your memory is kept fresh
ATPL is one big memory game and you may be foolish to think it's about how well you understand all the material, the way the exams are laid out means you have to do many subjects in one go, so it's important to keep refreshing all the subjects in a time frame to ensure its all kept fresh in your head. You can spend 2 weeks on one subject, then 2 weeks on the next. there is a good chance you will of forgotten 50% of the material from the first subject once you have finished the second. And this is why notes are critical.
#3 - Notes
When you read your first subject, 25% of the material will be easy to understand, and 75% of it you will forget within 2 weeks. So it's important to write your own notes of the areas you don't understand as easy, this then serves as your own study resource.
Do not write 50 pages of notes per subject, you need to write condensed and efficient notes to jog your memory about certain factors, and numbers that you need to remember.
It's better to focus more on writing notes on the areas that just don't sink in as easy so you can refer back to them.
You may find that after some time your notes are all second nature to you and you know everything in them, this is the point where you write a new set of notes more condensed focusing on the areas that you still don't understand.
Find a method that works for you, some students may learn better writing 100 pages of notes, just ensure that whatever you do is the most efficient use of your time.
ATPLs are hard, you want to try to organise holidays around them (Seriously), we are not saying work 24/7 on each subject, but taking a few days off can cost you 1 week of time to catch up. Instead of taking breaks have short days where you may just spend 30-60 minutes reading your notes, this tip becomes far more critical when you are close to your exams.
Atpl industry is blessed with so many giving students out there who are prepared to write feedback documents for you, take the time to read these and get an idea of the exam questions. but don't get to hung up on them either. Students try their best to give feedback but sometimes they get it wrong too so if you see a question that doesn't make any sense then the student has probably written it down wrong.
And another tip: Do not hound students who posted feedback documents for more feedback! this is such a common practice because you are probably scared about your exam but there is nothing more off-putting for someone who has taken ages to write a feedback document to be hounded with 50 messages from people asking “did this come up in your exam” - trust me they won't bother next time to write a document.
It's free to delay your exams up to 7 days before you are due to take them, if you are not ready, you are not ready. its that simple, the cost of failing an exam is more than the £80 fee, its the dent it leaves on your record.
When it comes to your exams you need something to skim through just before you go in, it's a good idea to make a 2-page a4 sheet of notes of things you just keep getting wrong so you can skim read this just before your exam.
Sleep is important, and its no cliche - you will learn this when you study human performance but your brain process everything you have learnt that day during your sleep, the better you sleep, the better you absorb the material.
You will not be the first person to score 50% on your first practice test and then suddenly think, I thought I studied so well! this is common to all students, the practice exams are designed to find your weaknesses and believe me it will find a lot of them. do not stress, make notes of the areas you struggled to answer and read the material again, you WILL get better and better
You may have signed up to one school, got all the books and think that's all you need, but its a good idea to get hold of another set of books because sometimes the books you have may not explain something as good as another set of books.
The Phil crouchers professional pilot studies is an excellent second resource tool, its around £80 on amazon but contain all the ATPL material, its a good book to have on stand by to refer to when you don't understand something.
Oxford Books, Bristol ground school and cats are all other good resources too, many students will sell these on eBay after their exams. - But another tip… don't sell your material after because once the exams are over, the studying never ends when you get to the airline interviews.
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