Originally Posted by
the rouge
Here is the situation the ATP, FOI and FE, writtens where changed in february the rest will all be changed in 10 days. June 13th is the release date for the new tests. What the FAA is doing is it is not releasing the questions to the public anymore because they are tired of dumb pilots who have no knowledge because the just memorize question and answer and don't have a clue about the subject itself.
I have been instructing for quite a while and when my students ask for help with the written I either teach them the subject myself, if they have the time and money or advise them to purchase the software from Pilottrainingsolutions.com. So far they only have the Private and Instrument written prep but its very well done entertaining, it covers all the material in an easy way and most of all gets the job done (the student that had the lowest score using their software had a 92% on an instrument). I am happy with them and will keep using their software, can't wait to see the commercial and ATP prep software from them..
There is a very good article in this month's 'Flying' magazine that addresses this topic in a way that many pilots agree with and support some of the recommendations made.
In my personal opinion, these 'dumb' pilots you speak of would be no better served by learning much of the arcane knowledge that the present test is composed of (a view shared by this article that I mention).
My present job requires an ATP yet uses very little of the practical knowledge contained in the test that I took. I think that there is a happy medium that can be struck. Rote memorization works for a good many things and a lot of the material that we need to know as pilots flows very well with this type of learning environment. A lot more of the 'learning' comes with experience and 'real world' flying that you won't learn from the books no matter how hard you make some written test.
USMCFLYR