Questions About FAA Questions
by Russ Still
Published
Updated
For pilots working on a new certificate or rating, the most common point of stress is the FAA Knowledge Test. Particularly at the Private Pilot level, students want to study in the most efficient way to quickly put this test in their rear-view mirrors. For many of them, the best way seems to be memorization of the test questions and answers. Just take someone’s practice tests over and over again, right? But this tactic is FAULTY and likely to result in disappointment.
The Tests Are Changing
And they’re changing right now! The FAA doesn’t want students to memorize their way through the question databases. This is why they stopped publishing them in 2008.
In 2020, the FAA began working with PSI to make memorization a poor study strategy. This meant more frequent changes to the questions, themselves, to stop what they called “question harvesting” by practice test providers. (See our article about FAA changes to the Knowledge Test.)
Right now, the FAA’s databases undergo a significant update every three months. These updates will likely become even more frequent. They’re serious about this.
If you take practice quizzes over and over, to the point that you can answer every question with ease, don’t get too confident. It’s highly likely that the Knowledge Test you take will have MANY questions that you’ve never seen before. Remember, no one knows what all the FAA questions are except the FAA (and PSI). They’re changed every quarter and new questions are constantly being added. And I kind of hate to bring this one up; soon many of the FAA questions will be dynamically generated. (They call this “Automatic Item Generation”.) This 100% guarantees that questions you get on your test will be new to you. They will be created from scratch, right there on the spot. There will be no way to memorize your way out of this!
Allow me to repeat: the questions and answers are changing quickly. But the good news is that the question TOPICS are not. They're still straight out of the ACS. If you feel the need to memorize something, memorize that, and skip the prepware-style quizzing apps. Learn the material, and the Knowledge Test will be easy.
How Not to Prepare
A common question from new students pops up on social media every day. “Which practice tests are closest to the real thing?” The answer might surprise you.
Some are closer than others, but none are spot on exact. And they are ALL quickly diverging. People who memorize questions and answers are trying to skip the learning part. Jumping straight over to practice test memorization, is a big mistake.
If you learn instead of memorize, it won't matter how the questions are worded, and this puts YOU in charge.
Remember that the test is not the goal. It only exists to confirm that learning took place. That's the objective.
Common Myths About the Test
- The FAA tries to confuse you with “trick” questions.
Not at all. They will offer some questions that require a deeper understanding, but they have no desire to trick you. In fact, the Testing Standards Section (AFS 810) listens to feedback from test takers. If you have a valid complaint about one of their test questions, they’ll have no problem either changing it or deleting it from the database.
- Real learning only occurs in the cockpit.
We hear it frequently and its nonsense. You have to learn how to do flight planning, right? That’s something to do on the ground, not in the air. Learning regulations, how to read charts of all types, understanding the systems in your aircraft, grasping the difference between a spin and a spiral; these are all things best mastered on the ground. These are the types of concepts well suited for Knowledge testing.
- The DPE will be skeptical if you score 100% on the Knowledge Test.
More nonsense. Your DPE has seen it all. He or she can tell within 5 minutes whether or not you know your stuff. If you’re knowledgeable and have a high test score, your checkride oral exam will probably go more quickly and smoothly. Always do your best.
- The Knowledge Test is Pass/Fail. (70% is just as good as a 100%)
I suppose that EVERY test could be considered pass/fail. There is some score that is simply unacceptable. For the FAA exams, that’s 70%. With a 70%, yes, you passed. But you did it just barely, one point shy of a failure. If that’s your goal, you’re shooting for the bottom. If someone tells you that a 70% is just as good as 100%, ask them which 30% of aviation knowledge is unnecessary.
- What do you call someone who graduates last in his medical school class?
Correct. He’s still a doctor. But does he or she know less than others in their class? If you’re going in for major surgery, do you want your surgeon to be from the top of the class or the bottom? Not every doctor is the same. Now, having said that, only the very best students get into medical school, so I’m not sure this is a good analogy to begin with. But we still hear it all the time.
- I’m a poor test taker
I hear this one all the time, and it's just an excuse. Are you really, or is there something else going on? Being a poor test taker implies that someone is incapable of doing well on tests. Unless that person has a learning disability, it’s not an issue of being unskilled with exams. The real culprit is study. Either their studying was ineffective, or there was not enough of it. Do you think you’re a “poor test taker”? Think of it this way: If you could win $1,000,000 for passing that test with at least a 90%, do you think you could do it? I’m pretty sure you could.
Summary
The FAA Knowledge Tests are like thermometers. They tell you how well you learned the necessary material. If you score low, you know that you need to go back and dig in again. Aviation is a critical business with limited room for errors. We're not talking about golf here. Don't let a low score be your goal. You're worth much more than that.
