Yeah, that's a common theme among the Remote Pilot crowd. I'm generalizing, but most don't want to learn anything. They just want the plastic card and then go fly. They highly resent having to take a test and many believe it's simply a money-grab by the FAA (who doesn't get anything from testing fees).
Sounds like you would enjoy the humor that's on the coffee mug @flyingron sent to Dr. Bruce
Same thing in computer science classes - do the students think we don't recognize when they use stackoverflow? It's so easy, because they submit the wrong answers they get from stackoverflow.....
I can assure you that I am possibly the world's worst memorizer. The courses (Dauntless and Gleim) I am taking for the written both have study guides that you go over before answering the questions. So there is a learning process with that. The question pool they then use only cements my getting the right answer. Learning something from textbooks is really somewhat nonsense anyway. It has been shown that medical students only remember 10% of what they have been taught after graduation (use experienced doctors only). Therefore, we retain what we have been taught hands on. Actual learning comes mostly through experience.
6 chapters a night and reading specifically to find the answers for the homework probably has more to do with the lack of retention than “learning from a textbook”.
Someday soon, pick up a copy of the FAA Aviation Instructors Handbook. You’ll have sooo much fun with the early chapters.
Because tests are to evaluate learning, and if the tests encourage people not to learn, they’re “broke”, and need to be fixed.
The issue is not that memorization is verboten. It is certainly a valid form of learning for things like regulations, airport signage, airspaces, etc. The issue here is the memorization of specific test questions and answers. For example, assume there is a test question that requires a calculation. If you know the correct answer in advance, you can then answer the question without knowing how to perform the calculation. That's the type of memorization that they are trying to reduce.
Maybe a student who can’t get a 70 on a test without a Sheppard shouldn’t get through the CFI and DPE gates.
This is all too amusing. People have complained about the FAA written test for years, but somehow managed to pass, usually with the help of a test prep.
Now the FAA is moving forward and redoing the writtens, which will make them even harder for the "these test are too hard" crowd.
How long before AOPA lobbies the FAA to delay the switch to improved testing?
With type rated ATPs who can’t correctly calculate a simple weight and balance, can’t see that a CG forward of the nosewheel or someplace in the airplane behind them on the ramp would be a problem, can’t find the CG envelope to verify that, and can’t decipher the CG envelope when presented with it, having been shown within the last week or two how to do it, being informed about the common errors mentioned above, and being told that this is absolutely part of the oral, I can see lots of ways people would fail a written requiring 70% if they can’t memorize the answers.
This is all too amusing. People have complained about the FAA written test for years, but somehow managed to pass, usually with the help of a test prep.
Now the FAA is moving forward and redoing the writtens, which will make them even harder for the "these test are too hard" crowd.
How long before AOPA lobbies the FAA to delay the switch to improved testing?
It's an "O", as in Ohio.
