Hi,

I have now sat 3/7 CASA CPL exams (HPL, Nav & Met). Going into these exams I felt confident having attended a theory ground school as well as extra study and revision (specifically Bob Tait's textbooks) prior to the exam.

My results have been -
HPL 68%
Nav 71%
Met 70%

Just wondering if anyone could share some tips because going into all of the exams I felt very confident that I would achieve 80% or above... A part of me thinks it's the theoretical questions where you have to pick the most 'correct' answer that's getting me down.

Receiving the lowest marks in your course isn't the best feeling either!

Much appreciated

Pat

Hi Pat,

I know the feeling, I really botched Met on my first attempt. The biggest problem I’ve had with any CASA exam is the wording of the questions. It’s probably been said hundreds of times on this forum but make sure you read the question thoroughly. It’s too easy to pick out some familiar words in the question without fully understanding what it is that they want you to do, which causes you to make a hasty (and often incorrect) choice. The exams aren’t entirely a test of your knowledge of the subject, they also want to make sure you have a full understanding of syntax and double negatives but on occasion they’ll use poor grammar to make you wonder what the intended meaning of the question is; much like the ‘time flies’ example in Bob’s HPL book.

Also, remember that you can highlight and underline and use tags in your documents so long as they don’t include forms of notations. www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:STANDARD::pc=PC_90074

Power on, don’t let CASA beat you

Thanks mate.

I'm hoping it's the wording and not me.

A pass is a pass, isn't it??

PatRoss, dont worry about the marks. As you say a PASS is a PASS.

These exams are very much POT luck. The questions can either be really hard or really easy !
My advice with AirLaw (as you'll need 80%) is
- Mark the Sections You'll need for the exam
- Do as Bob suggests and learn where to FIND the answers
- Read the questions! CASA make the Airlaw exam very much a English test !
- Do the Bob Tait Sample exams. Worth every cent.

I failed Human factors also, and one of my fellow students did not study at all and got 85%. Go Figure. I spent 4 days straight on Threat and Error ALONE prior the to the exam !!!!

Just back from HP and on a real downer...fail by 5 that TEM was the area that really let me down ... first exam back after not flying for about 15 yrs..and needless to say I nearly spewed leading up to it... ) any advice please send my way.. would be greatly received

The other problem is the tendency of many students to 'learn the questions'. By trying to memorize practice questions by rote, some students go into the exam expecting to see the same, or very similar, questions. Hence the common complaint that CASA's questions have strange wording.

It's important to actually read the text carefully and make sure you understand the basic principles. Don't concentrate on questions alone. Make your own notes and rephrase the text in your own words as though you were explaining it t a friend who has never heard of it.

While a pass is a pass as they say... i highly recommend not going into the exams until you are confident that you can pass Bob's practice exam with a 100% result, unfortunately 80% is just not high enough... CASA love to throw curve balls almost like they are just double checking you read the text properly....Getting a good mark helps a great deal in minimising the KDR's you will have to do at the end. You can expect that the examiner on your CPL test day will be testing you verbally on all areas you had issues with in the exam. I did most of my studies just using the Bob Tait books (read through each more than once), and any issues i had i went to youtube and the forums for help... they are a great resource. Make sure before going into the exams that you read every question someone has posted in the forums , 85% of the time it will be from someone who has sat the exam and had issues with a particular question, one of the team over at Bob Tait will give great answers and you will almost always end up getting the same question in the exam... it saved me so many times over the 7 exams. Another trick i would highly recommend is reading Bob's text book doing the questions there and then also grabbing the ATC books and doing the questions there.... DO NOT read the text in the ATC books you'll just end up overloading yourself with too much information... Bob is great at making the learning fun which is what you need to stay motivated.

Good Luck, with the remaining exams... its a slog, but its all worth it in the end!.