Study time during ATP/CTP course?
 

I am scheduled to begin the ATP/CTP course soon. My question is, how much time will I have to study for the written during the course?

Not a much as you would think. The days are long and you will be tired. Think it is worth it to get Sheppard Air on your own dime and have more time to go over the material. Had one guy in our class that delayed taking the test after ATP-CTP because he was not ready. He did not study before the course.

I am sure like everything on this ***** board there will be different opinions.

The first time I took the ATP written I used the all paper study method and worked part time for a couple months as I was employed full time. When I reviewed for an interview recently I bought the Sheppard Air interview prep course and went through it several times (according to the study guide). That took me a couple weeks with a lot of extra research on a variety of subjects.

If you are taking the full ATP written I recommend the Sheppard Air ATP prep (not the interview prep) and suggest you get started ASAP. Do not wait until class. Just like the other guy said you will be working hard and be tired. Anything you can do to lighten the load and reduce your fatigue will pay dividends. This is your career. Don't screw around. Prep as much as you can.

Preparing as much as I can is the plan, just do not want to go a week without having much time to look over the material again before the test.

You will be able to review all the questions once. Marked questions once. And take a couple practice tests during that week no issue.

Would not recommend starting from scratch as previously discussed.

Currently in the ATP-CTP course at L3 in Dallas.

We have lots of down time. Day 1 and 2 in the classroom were about 8-4, Day 3 I was back in the hotel early, and Day 4 should be similar to Day 3. It's somewhat tiring just sitting in the classroom doing nothing, but we have lots of breaks, and you're not exactly exerting yourself, mentally or physically. You should have plenty of capacity to study in the evenings.

The last three days are sim days, and you will usually have one sim session per day (roughly 4 hours). I think it's pretty typical for those sessions to be really late (my full-motion sim times are 22:30-02:30 and 22:15-01:15). That means that between the afternoon of Day 4 and 22:30 on Day 5 (roughly 30 hours), I have nothing to do. Days 6 and 7 will see you busy for no more than 4 hours each, or if you do get doubled up on one day, it will mean you have a whole day empty.

There is plenty of time to study.

When I got to class, I already had Sheppard Air, and, following their study strategy, had gone through the questions once, and was about halfway done going through them a second time. It's Day 3 now, and I'm still 5 days away from taking the written; I'm basically twiddling my thumbs with the written prep at this point. I've finished up the questions a second time, reviewed the ones that I missed during that round, and have taken a few practice tests, all in the 90s.

At this point I plan to take 1-2 tests a day just to keep myself seeing the questions, but I'm going to have a lot of just sitting around time.