Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Written Exam - *PASSED*

My training lurched forward a bit today. I took my written test, which is good, because I'm ready to be done with the book work. Now, I know that expectations are very high for me to perform, and I've really felt the pressure. So it shames me to admit that my score was 93%.

Now, there was something about the test that was, uh, kinda odd. On the questions that required me to refer to a sectional chart for navigational calculations, I checked the provided chart against my plotter, and the scales were off by a small amount (3.3%). The problem with that is, when you are trying to figure out how long it's going to take to get from Point A to Point B with X amount of winds and Y heading, and the multiple choice answers are A. 39 minutes, B. 37 minutes C. 41 minutes, well, you can see the problem. So, I decreased all of my distances by 3.3% and it seemed to work ok.

Out of 60 problems, I got 4 wrong, which is pretty good, but I was hoping for 100%. Because then I'd get the respect that I've always hoped for. Or something like that.

Saturday morning I'm flying with Peter to figure out these darn short field landings, and then hopefully we'll get to the stage check next week. Stay tuned!

5 comments:

Steve said...

Great job Keith!!

I didn't ace it either, but a 90% or better is pretty awesome and keep the examiner from worrying too much about your knowledge.

And as far as the accuracy of things goes, a lot of the FAA questions are pretty much complete trickery. Like the performance charts where you follow the line - the print quality's bad enough that you can legitimately do it right and come up with two different answers, both of which are options to pick. Yay FAA!

Keith K. said...

Yeah, I don't understand why they don't just tell you the answer. I suppose it avoids disputes or something.

For the record, I HATE performance charts. Just give me an excel spreadsheet or something.

Paul said...

Congratulations...93% is great. That should get the examiner off your back some at least.

Unknown said...

I'm so disappointed in you. I expected you to do perfectly plus get extra credit. You make me sad :(

Keith K. said...

I'm so sorry. I'll retake the exam next week, and this time I'll try HARDER.