Of Much Use?

Now this is something I’ve heard a lot of students talk about. “There’s no use of the C.A.R!” or a slightly more debatable one, “Where in the field, while you’re working on an aircraft in heat/cold/rain with passengers waiting to board, and your boss breathing down your neck, will you go looking for the C.A.R?!... and some other times like, “C.A.R is all paperwork!”

In my first ‘meeting’ with the C.A.R, on several occasions, I struggled to understand it’s relevance. For example, Just what does a Type Certificate have to do with airworthiness, and where does the Certificate of Airworthiness fit into the jigsaw; or, just what is ‘dry’ lease and how does it differ from ‘wet’ lease…and why on earth do I, training to be an AME, have to know these things?!”
It was a bitter struggle for me in the months leading up to the first few examination attempts. “Should I try and understand it first and make notes to remember? Should I just read the question banks? Should I simply MUG para-by-para?! What should I do?”

To me, just the fact that I was in a professional Aircraft Maintenance stream was such an inspiration, something in there just refused to want to memorize like college subjects! Besides, and to tell you the truth, the sheer volume of the C.A.R was intimidating enough! You have to remember here, as already mentioned, in our days we had objective AND essay type questions. The essay type questions did require a whole lot of memorizing. But memorizing without understanding things like the sheer relevance of certain Parts or even Series, isn’t easy for some people. It wasn’t for me.

So, how did I get through this potentially hazardous obstacle?