G'day all,
Earlier this arvo, I attempted and passed my 3rd CPL theory exam - Air Law; and while I'm thrilled to report I scored 88%, this was no easy feat, as I nearly exhausted my 2 hour time limit by the time I had finished revising all my answers. As a matter of fact, I found this exam harder than Aerody, with many questions engaging in the typical CASA wordplay. I thought I might be done within 30-45 mins - nothing could have been further from the truth!
Key takeaways and tips:
- As always, BT's text and online exams are the way to go. THere are a number of question banks within the text - make sure you try and attempt them all. If, in the online exam, you consistently score in the mid 90's, you should be ok.
- BT has laid emphasis on 48.1 which covers FDP; though I was only asked two questions on this, practising enough of these should keep you comfortable in terms of finding the relevant information from the CAO during the exam in a timely and accurate manner
- My question bank practically covered content from across the CAO/CASR/CAR extracts that I had downloaded off BT's website. If you find buying the entire CAO/CASR/CAR sets too expensive or bulky, BT's extract should suffice. Remember, the same rules for tagging/highlighting etc apply to the extract as they do to other supporting materials such as the AIP and ERSA - Also, ensure you bind the extracts, else you won't be allowed to use it during the exam (I paid around $30.00 to Officeworks to print it and professionally bind it for me - they actioned my request within 2 hours of my uploading the extract online through their website - neat eh!)
- Be THOROUGHLY familiar with your AIP. I found myself rummaging across my AIP a lot and while I'm sure this would have served me good practice for my upcoming IREX next year, I do believe I should have been more familiar with where stuff was in my AIP rather than constantly looking at the index references. I reckon this is what slowed me down during the exam.
Final thougths -
I only gave myself around 8 days to prepare (and that's with full time work) and I found it sufficient. A word of advice - try to not get too comfortable in the knowledge that a lot of the content is a repeat from RPL/PPL syllabi - as I said before, there is reasonable amount of wordplay in the questions which will really get you thinking. Having said that, 2 hours is sufficient time to finish and like every other test, if you are well prepared and can also draw practical knowledge and experience from your PPL/CPL flying, you'll be fine.
Now, off to CMET in 2 weeks - Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year and Decade 2020!
Cheers,
HK
