Private Pilot Witten Exam debrief - Tips to PASS!

hey what's going on good people welcome to russ can fly another wednesday edition russ what's up okay so i know these wednesday editions are getting crazy but i don't want to mix the flying videos with some of these ideas i keep getting and i'm just so obsessed with this aviation stuff things keep coming up so i got this interesting question about the faa written exam and i realized that i did not do a written exam debrief like i did for the actual practical test or the check ride and so i thought you know what that's a great idea now unfortunately it won't be as fresh because it's been a while since i took the written but i still thought since i was asked to make a debrief for the written i would do that so that's why i decided to do yet another wednesday edition because i just thought listen if folks in the community want certain things to be made as a video then i'm gonna do it because that's the whole point you learn i learn we learn all of that good stuff so let's get to it okay so since this was requested and it is really windy out here and a little chilly um i'm not gonna be before you long i'm just gonna do three things that i think is important to think about as you get ready to take the faa written exam these are three things that i think will make the difference between what happened when i failed the exam the first time and when i passed the exam the second time yes the first time i took the faa written exam i failed i had a 67 and you need at least a 70 now my and of course there's other videos in there showing me basically failing and passing but more importantly i was so disappointed because one of the things that and this is going to be my first point is i didn't really understand how to take the test itself i knew that it was gonna be on a computer i knew that it was gonna be multiple choice but i didn't understand the mechanics of the actual exam and the reason why i didn't is because i had not picked up this book yet and yes i'm going to show you this book again you're going to be like this book again yeah because it is just too important and you should have it and now i know i've talked about this book a number of times and i've talked about it a number of times because it is a very important book and an extremely useful must-have tool if you are a part 61 pilot and you're going to be getting your private pilot license or private pilot certificate you absolutely must have this book this is the certification standards for your check ride and i've talked all about that in the debrief but believe it or not there are some key things in this book that will actually help you with how to take the exam i completely missed a couple of questions just because i had not purchased this book prior to taking the written exam and had i and had i looked at some of the helpful tips in this book i would have known how to take the exam which is just as important as knowing the material and answering the questions and i'll show you why right now now one of the things in this book is that it has a lot of knowledge test procedures and tips these appendices are very helpful and this is something that you definitely should use of course it has all the stuff in terms of accepted materials unaccepted materials blah blah blah but this test tips thing was like huge and i'm gonna tell you why but go over to this bullet here and this bullet i'm gonna read in full because it's very key for questions involving use of a graph you may request a printed copy that you can mark in computing your answer this copy and all of the notes and paperwork must be given to the testing center upon completion of the test now the reason why that particular bullet is so powerful they were definitely going to purposefully try to trick you they would have a couple questions where the answers would be very close to one another so they would give so at the testing center they give you a book and they give you like a clear sheet of plastic and a dry erase marker and a dry eraser i had no idea what that dry eraser was for what the marker was for what the clear sheet of plastic was for none of that now see therein lies my problem had i read that bullet i would have understood that's where i could mark to do that graph so that i could be very precise and so rather than trying to eyeball the grass like you know when you have to complete you know you know you'll have a question about clearing a 50-foot obstacle but you have to go up to a certain temperature and then you have to go over and you might have to go down along a curve then go back up i just tried to eyeball that because i didn't understand why they had given me that clear sheet of plastic in the in the marker i had no idea so i never used it and so instead of being precise in my answers i basically tried to eyeball it since they know that people are probably gonna be trying to eyeball the answers they'll put two answers that are close together so rather than use the equipment that was given to me i was just trying to eyeball it and i got those questions wrong and so that's why having that acs book is so important because it's going to give you very useful tips on how to take the exam my first bit of advice would be to pick up the acs standards book and read those appendices it's going to give you a whole lot of very good and pertinent information on how to take the test which is just as important as knowing the stuff because if you know the stuff but you don't understand the mechanics of how to take the test like using the tools using the clear plastic to make sure that you're precise and making your lawns so that you can get the correct answer then you're gonna get those questions wrong even if you know the material and that would be sad to get something wrong that you really do know all right so that's my first tip get the acs book or any other book and know how to take the exam now my second point may be obvious but it really does make a difference now i had a real kind of i want to understand how everything works type of thing but there was definitely areas that i struggled but specifically i can remember a couple of weight and balance questions that i really just didn't understand and unfortunately because of that i kind of avoided it i really struggled with weight and balance knowledge because it just wasn't coming natural to me especially when you were looking at the charts and you had to do kind of like half like you know decimal places and stuff decimals really back to that yes so because i was struggling with it i often times kind of glazed over because you know rather than digging in so it goes without saying that if there is an area that you're struggling in those are questions you should go to repeat and then anything that you have issues with then you go back to your study materials and then you go back to the questions and then you go back to your study materials don't try to just glaze over or just have a general idea about a certain you know area make sure you understand it because again there may be three or four different questions that asked about the same material three or four different ways and if you don't have a solid foundation in that area you're going to get three or four questions wrong unless you guess one right and you don't want to get it to a point where you're guessing and that's what did happen to me i was weak on weight and balance and i was a little shaky on cloud clearances in controlled airspace and i figured you know what what i'll do is when i go in there yeah i'm a little shaky but i'll be able to do the eliminator question and then take a 50 50 chance and all of that well that strategy resulted in a 67 percent and a failure so that's not something that you want to do if you're shaky on the cloud clearances and controlled airspace study the material get it solid then do some of the questions if it's still not solid then go back and study some more come up with different mnemonics find different ways to try to memorize the material because listen you want to know it if you are flying vfr you need to know that if you're in class echo airspace what the cloud clearance is around because if you don't know it while you're on the ground and you do something wrong up in the air it could be really bad for you another airplane or you could be jeopardizing your licensure so in essence don't wing it don't think that you're gonna be able to eliminate an answer on the test and figure it out as you go along that's not a good strategy you're gonna get yourself in trouble plus like i said each section is going to be asking multiple questions about a particular subject area so if you're weak in that subject area you could get those three four five seven questions wrong and trust me that did happen to me the end result was my whole strategy of trying to eliminate and then figure out that resulted in a failure period so any area that you're struggling in go back and be solid the better your foundation now the better it's going to be throughout your aviation journey once you know this stuff i can tell you you know it and rather than trying to figure it out it's just gonna make you you know have a bad day and you're gonna fail and you don't want to fail last but not least the third point or the third piece of advice i'd give is that you should practice practice practice i will tell you the first time i took the practice the written exam i had not practiced a lot of questions yes i did a couple practice exams and i did a couple of them full length i think one i got like a 78 the other one i got like a 80 or something like that but it was two different practice exams and i did them probably like three weeks apart and i just didn't have a lot of practice under my belt and so you know the drill i went in with that very little bit of practice under my belt i went in took that exam 67 failed bottom line so my cfr and i came up with this plan and actually he suggested it and i was thinking oh my gosh i don't know if i'm gonna be able to pull this off but we came up with this practice goal that i would practice the questions so that i would know how the questions were being asked because i knew the material he knew i knew the material i knew i knew the material the issue was how is the material being tested on the exam what is the construction of the question that gets to that knowledge of that particular skill set and so my cf i came up with this goal that i would practice the questions and i would have three consecutive exams where i would get a 90 or above now of course yes that was crazy the first time i heard it i was tripping too i got it i get i get it you might not want that same goal but that was the goal that he set for me and so i went about my business of shoring up my vfr cloud clearances understanding weight and balance ad nauseam and practicing the questions as well and so the result was i did end up getting three consecutive practice exams where i got a 90 or above what was the result of that practice the result was i got a 92 on my written exam and i passed so it may seem like that was overkill to do that but at the end of the day it prepared me for the exam and for me that worked now for you you might not have to do three consecutive exams maybe you just do one or two or whatever but one of the things i will say is that don't think that because you may have this photographic memory and you know you know all about this stuff that you understand how these questions are being formulated because sometimes in my opinion the poor there's a few of them that were like poorly worded it was like when those things were like well it depends because the way in which they worded the question was kind of wonky so it could have resulted in an answer that could have been correct if one interpreted the question the way one could have the issue is it's not about what you can interpret it's just about the way they want to test the it's not about how you interpret this how they want you to understand the question to get the answer that is correct and so that's why practicing the questions are very important so i implore you you will be doing yourself a huge favor if you basically put yourself in a situation where you're shoring up the weak parts of your knowledge base and you are practicing those questions so that's really it and you know i wanted to try to keep this video as short as possible i think those are the three keys that was definitely the three things that made the difference between my failure which really sucked and passing which was really awesome and so those are the things that i would impart upon folks that are trying to figure out how to approach this exam certainly if you have any other additional questions hit me up in the comments you know and i will definitely respond i try to respond to all the comments on these videos because the whole point is if you take the time to watch and interact i should at least follow back with a reply or additional information if people request it so thank you to the brother who asked the question about the written exam and the debrief you got this it is not insurmountable and as you can see i went from a 67 to a 92 percent and those three things that i just talked about in this video are things that i definitely did that got me from the fail to the past all right so that's it if you have any questions hit me up in the comments thank you for joining me on this crazy journey man i love aviation this stuff is just awesome all right so russ kidd russ can fly take care and i'll see you later peace

Channel: Russ can FLY!

Views: 14,934

Keywords: faa written exam private pilot, faa written test prep, faa written exam, private pilot, private pilot license, private pilot ground school, private pilot written exam, private pilot written test prep, private pilot written exam review, faa private pilot written exam, faa private pilot written exam practice, faa private pilot checkride, passing the faa, passing the faa written exam, tips for private pilot written exam, how to pass the faa private pilot written

Id: wOa7xRjberg

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 06 2022