Case # 1 - Question Bank Study - Failure

Say you prepared hard from your Question Banks but you had that one bad day on the day of the exam. Nothing went to plan.
After you’re done analyzing why you didn’t pass, maybe by the narrowest of margins, you get back to your ‘routine’…which one?...the one about preparing from question banks! Why? Let’s look at the possible thoughts in your mind right now.

“well, maybe I forgot a couple of correct answers to certain questions…”
“Maybe the examiner mixed up some of the options and wordings, so I’m going to be ready for that next time around!”
“I’ve come too far already now to go back and pound through leaflets and leaflets of jargon!”
You force yourself to pick up your regulations book once again, go through a few pages of that ‘jargon’ and – “Ah, I know this! This is that question…the answer to this is that…I know it all!”
“I think I need more questions. There are probably some questions I’ve not covered…let me buy that other question bank by that other author. More questions…more…more…collect more…collect…collect !”
And now that you’ve got a whole lot more questions, “Now we’ll see who’s smarter!”

In all likelihood, you’ll follow the question bank approach until you pass…finally! The thing about it is that you’ll have passed an exam, without much clue about the subject matter.
“Who cares?!”

Well, let’s see how this has actually brought you closer to failure, than success, to your goal of becoming an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer at a major airline.

Let's put this in perspective

With regards to taking ‘assistance’ from question banks for exam preparation, I’ve been there too. However, it has, as it should be, been associated with getting mentally attuned to an upcoming examination. It’s important to get the brain ready for an exam in the format it’s to be taken. One example of this is how sportsmen (any sport, from athletics, to tennis, to swimming, etc.) get themselves ready, even psyched up, before an important event.
So, using question banks is a great way to get into the ‘exam-mindset’. However, making it a core for your exam preparation is preparing for failure!

Lets draw an analogy with sports. Any training coach will always have his/her player/athlete go through rigorous physical training and development programs run to a likely tight schedule, before even picking up say a racquet to strike a tennis ball. Why? When an athlete goes into an important event, just prior to the start, the adrenalin starts to pump; in anticipation of ‘the big moment’. No matter how much practice you’ve put in, no matter how many hours of training, nothing can simulate the experience just prior to what can easily be labeled a ‘make-or-break’ event. If your body is not prepared adequately through rigorous physical training routines, the surge of adrenalin, before and during the event, can quite easily result in a disastrous and potentially very painful injury; ruling you out for weeks maybe months. The strain put on the muscles and tissues by powerful and sudden surges of adrenalin, is tremendous; and has led to tragedy on the sports field on various occasions.

So, what’s the comparison with writing the CAR exam? You’re not seriously implying I’ll have a heart failure when I see the exam paper?
No. maybe not. But maybe I can guide you closer to an answer by asking you if you’ve ever had the experience of sitting in an exam hall for an important exam, with maybe a hundred others (or alone, which is scarier by the way!) around you, and staring alternatively between the question in your exam paper and the mosaic/marble tiling/carpeted flooring just above and beyond your question paper? You have no idea whatsoever, about the topic the question is about let alone the answer to it! Blank! “what do I do now?”?? Now that, is the effect of your emotional brain. Powerful? Oh yes!
So, you can read, learn, mug all the questions and answers in those question banks. When you get the exam paper in front of your eyes, you will likely have difficulty recognizing the question (which you will realize later, was taken out directly from the question bank you were reading that same morning!), let alone having doubts about the correct answer to it!
That is through my own personal experience and the experience of many others I’ve spoken to through the years. And that is why, preparing ONLY from q banks, is preparing yourself, for failure!

Today's Students

Since a while I’ve been struggling a bit regards the direction this blog should take. Most AME Students I’ve talked to realize the importance of Air Regulations to Aircraft Maintenance, and making that perception core to their exam prep. However, going by their opinions it is not entirely an ‘effective’ way of getting through the exams.
There are other concerns with respect to passing these exams as well, about which, beyond mention, I am not getting into greater depth. These include rigging of exam results, corruption, incorrect markings etc.
The most reliable method, apparently, of getting through then is based on collecting questions from students appearing in these exams. The physical papers are not a take-away item, from the exam hall, (un)fortunately! So, questions from recent exams, question banks as their usually referred to. This does seem to be the ‘tried-and-tested’ method; as I’m guessing for most competitive exams.

“We go over the questions and their answers, again and again, until the question itself sits in our mind!” says one student about to appear in the July 2009 session. “Our seniors have passed it the same way. So will we.” “Do you have a somewhat clear idea of the subject matter associated with the question?” my question seems to draw a couple of sniggers. “Who Cares!”, “Passing, the exam, getting our license is what matters. Once we get a job in an airline, all these regulations come automatically”

This is ground reality. My reaction will need some reflecting. But your comments are welcome, particularly if you happen to be part of a community that travels by air frequently!

Step # 2 : Break down the C.A.R language!

I have covered this topic in greater depth in previous posts namely: DGCA and the English Language Part 1 and Part 2.

Briefly put, the idea is to simplify things for yourself. The DGCA has their own reasons to put language in the C.A.R in the way they do. Probably it’s something to do with it’s legal nature and probably ALL legal documents and legal notices are worded that way. However for you to write an exam you just HAVE to break that language up into simpler, meaningful and less complicated…. I will include more example of how you can ‘decipher’ the language in further posts.
The importance of this particular step cannot be overemphasized for it’s importance. There are lots of arguments (mostly in the study groups I talked about earlier) that do the rounds in classrooms on one particular perspective here and another one there. The bottomline with the C.A.R is, there is only one perspective; that of the DGCA! Understanding this perspective takes time and experience. But breaking up the language atleast makes the language easier; and that is where you can begin with making notes.
CAUTION: Most people are somehow of the opinion that breaking up sentences and paragraphs is usually to make learning them easier. Not here.
This step is meant to derive a summary/notes out of. That actually takes us to step 3 which follows soon. Re-iterating then, to break down the C.A.R language is Not to learn, not to memorize

Study Groups

Another very effective way of ‘troubleshooting’ your C.A.R doubts is to make study groups. It works more often than you’d like to believe! There are problems with study groups and we will cover that in time, however, if you keep the groups goal consistent and the discussion relevant, study groups help more than even self study!

Step # 1

So the first step should be to have a clear Understanding of the C.A.R part vis-à-vis the Series.
Yes, you do need guidance with understanding and that is where your AME school C.A.R instructor comes in. If there are certain aspects of the C.A.R you don’t understand during the course of normal lectures ASK questions! (we always did!)
In the highly regrettable circumstance that you feel shy, or feel you’ll make an idiot of yourself, contact the instructor in his/her spare time and am sure they would atleast make an attempt to iron out your doubts.
If you’re still not able to get to grasp with it, you’re free to ask questions on this blog(via the comments link) and I would try my best to help you out.

How to really study the CAR

The C.A.R is not your ordinary 12th grade text book with a chapter, followed by a summary and notes on the chapter, and finally questions. This fact in itself makes the C.A.R a very difficult thing to really study for an examination. A good first thought to overcome this is to create your own summary of every part and pick out questions on it. However, given the nature of aviation law, it is first appropriate to understand the content of the C.A.R part you’re covering. Without doing that not only is it quite difficult to make notes, but also one that makes for a very dry activity!

What we’re going to do is put down some steps on how you can really go about studying the C.A.R.
We’ll include tips and even examples from the sister blog Aircraft Maintenance Special, wherever possible, and in the course of time if I do come up with any additional tips to these steps, I’ll continue to make these additions as ‘comments’ to the primary post.