The ground school exam for the Ultra Light Aeroplane pilot permit consists of eighty multiple choice questions and your need 60% correct to pass. You have three hours to complete the exam. I had been studying the material that I bought from the Ultralight Pilot’s Association of Canada (UPAC) and have done my time at ground school. I took the day off work before my exam to do some day before cramming. I also wanted to write some of the practice exams in the back of my UPAC books.
After the first several questions of the exam I realize that I am not as prepared as I would like and don’t have a good understanding of the material. So much for “you don’t need to know that”. I put in a good day of studying in between some work related issues. However, I am not feeling that confident.
The exam is farmed out by Transport Canada and the closest location for me to write the exam is approximately an hour and fifteen minutes from my home. I arrive about twenty minutes early to get the lay of the land. The examiner is not prepared for my arrival and asks me what the the prerequisite is for taking the exam. After some wrestling with papers and a few faxes, proof that I have the prerequisites, I am ready to take the exam.
The exam is written in a one room building that was built in 1948. The examiner proudly says that they haven’t done a thing to it since then. I am not sure that needed to be said. I am glad it is summer and it is a warm day. The instructor goes back to the main building but indicates before his departure that he can watch me from the main building because there is a camera installed behind my desk.
The test is computer based and I quickly get started and am familiar with the majority of the questions thanks to the practice exams. I finished in about an hour and twenty minutes. The nice thing about most computer based tests is that you can get your results quickly. The instructor pushed a button on the computer and voila – 89%. I am happy – one more thing off the check list!
After the first several questions of the exam I realize that I am not as prepared as I would like and don’t have a good understanding of the material. So much for “you don’t need to know that”. I put in a good day of studying in between some work related issues. However, I am not feeling that confident.
The exam is farmed out by Transport Canada and the closest location for me to write the exam is approximately an hour and fifteen minutes from my home. I arrive about twenty minutes early to get the lay of the land. The examiner is not prepared for my arrival and asks me what the the prerequisite is for taking the exam. After some wrestling with papers and a few faxes, proof that I have the prerequisites, I am ready to take the exam.
The exam is written in a one room building that was built in 1948. The examiner proudly says that they haven’t done a thing to it since then. I am not sure that needed to be said. I am glad it is summer and it is a warm day. The instructor goes back to the main building but indicates before his departure that he can watch me from the main building because there is a camera installed behind my desk.
The test is computer based and I quickly get started and am familiar with the majority of the questions thanks to the practice exams. I finished in about an hour and twenty minutes. The nice thing about most computer based tests is that you can get your results quickly. The instructor pushed a button on the computer and voila – 89%. I am happy – one more thing off the check list!
8 comments:
Only 60% correct is required to pass the test? I'd be concerned about the competence of a pilot who missed two out of every five questions.
71 correct out of 80 seems a fine score, though.
The questions are not straightforward, and unlike the US equivalent test the questions are not publicly available. In the US pilots routinely score in the high nineties, but anything in the nineties is an exceptional mark in Canada.
I don't understand the logic of asking questions whose answers are so unobvious that students are expected not to get them right and the passing grade needs to be made so low. Am I failing to recognize a benefit to doing it that way instead of testing for full (or nearly full) knowledge of a minimum defined set of facts and concepts?
I'd still worry that some key piece of information might be missing from the mind of someone who passed with a score on the low end of the scale.
I was also going to express some confusion about the questions not being published. How does one know what to study if one doesn't know what is going to be tested? But then I remembered that the blog post said "I...am familiar with the majority of the questions thanks to the practice exams." It sounds like the UPAC study guides do provide the questions.
(Hmm, I seem to be sounding combative here. That's not my intent, but I'm not sure how to ask without an uncomprehending attitude leaking through.)
Knowing what to study is not hard. The topics to be studied are published in detailed point form, and recommended textbooks are listed. It is the responsibility of the student to learn the material in a way that she can apply it, not merely answer a question in the way that she has memorized is the correct way to answer it.
One exception to that is that air law questions are very predictable, because there are only so many ways you can ask about a precisely worded regulation, so some students score 100% on that section.
Most questions are detailed and tricky, so that people who do not pay close attention to detail do not score well. It's not a test of a hundred things a pilot has to memorize and regurgitate. It's a test of ten thousand things she has to interrelate, understand and work with. There are key pieces of information missing from everyone's mind at any moment, but pilots have proved we have the flexibility and wit to make good decisions and solve problems despite not knowing every possible fact.
It's also much more difficult under this system for a school or instructor to cram a student full of the correct answers and send her off to write a test on material that has not permeated her soul. They try, by quizzing students on what they were asked, and teaching students how to answer those questions.
Thank you for a wholly satisfying answer.
Well written article.
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