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Tips and suggestions for preparing for the real examinations

AirQuiz is NOT a short cut to success, nor is it designed to replace your ground school or training materials.  Please read the following suggestions very carefully - they may save you from unexpectedly failing the real exams! 

We have included some strategies from our students that we think are worth passing on, shown in green text below.  (Have you got a good tip you want to pass on?)

1. Some people prepare for exams by repeating practice tests again and again.  Of course, all they do is eventually learn the practice database, and then when the real examination phrases things differently (and it will) they come unstuck.  This will happen if you spend too much time 'testing' yourself and not enough time studying the subject.  Don't let it happen to you!
   
   "I make sure that I test myself no more than 10% of the time - the other 90% must be study"  (Kate)
    
2. When you take an AirQuiz examination, use the ones you got wrong as a trigger to go back to the course materials and then study that area.  (Don't just look up the answer to that particular question!)  Don't take another AirQuiz examination until you are satisfied that you have studied the areas that were weak.  (You can't pass the examinations without some work!)
   
   "If I get one wrong, then I read around the whole area of  the question that I got wrong, working on the basis that there is something fundamental that I have misunderstood."  (Steve)
    
3. It is possible to pick up marks by guessing if you are not sure.  Lucky guessing could make the difference between a pass and a fail.  To rule out this possibility whilst practising - leave any ones you don't know blank.  This will avoid your result being a 'false positive'.
   
   "If I decide I am not confident that I know the answer, I uncheck the answer box.  That way I get reminded to return to that part of the syllabus."  (Sophie)
    
4. Wait until you can regularly hit at least 85% and preferably more in AirQuiz before you take the real examination.  Under real examination conditions, people sometimes make silly mistakes.  Don't take the examination if you are only just passing in AirQuiz - wait until you are properly ready!
   
   "I ration myself as to the number of practice exams I take.  I use them as occasional checks of progress as I work through the books."  (Carl)
    
5. Most important of all - give yourself time with your study materials, and read widely.  In addition to your course materials, check out the CAA safety sense leaflets, and download (and read!) key documents such as CAP 413 - the Radiotelephony bible.  Take a look at the key AIC's too - the pink series in particular.  Note that the popular training books cover virtually all of the material examined, but don't assume that they cover all of it, all of the time!
   
   "AirQuiz is great ;-) but it is just part of a bigger picture of study.  In addition to the books I also used online resources such as the AIP and materials available from the CAA too.  The result?  100% on three of the examinations so far!  Thanks!"  (Susie)

Note: AirQuiz may have some similar questions to those in the examinations, but they are deliberately not the same as the ones in the real examinations!  It wouldn't be ethical, or in the spirit of AirQuiz to copy the real questions.  Worst of all, it wouldn't help you much in the long run either! 

Incidentally from time to time we hear that some copies of the 'real' database for Pilot examinations have sprung up on the Internet.  Our advice?  Cribbed shortcuts and/or missing knowledge in aviation?  Don't bother.