Big Changes Are Coming to the Part 107 Test

[Russ Still]

Questions are currently being changed and reworded on a regular basis. This means that it will become more and more likely that you'll see questions on the FAA exam that you've never seen before. Know the concepts, however, and it won't matter how they are worded. But the bigger news is the structural change to the FAA exam itself. This will render memorization ineffective as a test prep strategy. The changes are described in this short article.

https://www.uavgroundschool.com/articles/the-knowledge-test-is-changing

 

[Mavic Mac]

Questions are currently being changed and reworded on a regular basis. This means that it will become more and more likely that you'll see questions on the FAA exam that you've never seen before. Know the concepts, however, and it won't matter how they are worded. But the bigger news is the structural change to the FAA exam itself. This will render memorization ineffective as a test prep strategy. The changes are described in this short article.

https://www.uavgroundschool.com/articles/the-knowledge-test-is-changing

Will Gold Seal develop a new course to prep for the new testing format ?

 

[Russ Still]

Will Gold Seal develop a new course to prep for the new testing format ?

Very little, if anything at all, will change with Gold Seal. We already teach concepts. Question memorization is not part of our method.

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

I have so many unpleasant things I want to tell the geniuses at the FAA, beginning with their lackadaisical reply to closure of testing centers by COVID-19 (too bad, so sad) words just fail me.

 

[Airmapper]

If I understand the concept, this does not bother me, unlike most things the FAA seems to want to do to UAS operators....a bit intimidating to think it will be harder, but I think it you know your subject it shouldn't be.

I think too many people try to memorize it and I think Part 107 in general holds a lot of riff raff that don't have or attempted to cultivate any background in aviation at all and breezed into it because they are just good at taking tests. That's fine but I think you end up with good photographers with licenses that don't have a clue about how things fly. I feel inadequate in some ways, as is my nature, but I do have an aviation background and have flown manned aircraft and I fell back to that knowledge and way of thinking a lot to understand the concepts on the test.

I hold a few FCC licenses as well, and for Amateur radio the test are easily memorized because as the FAA used to do the question pools are public. I hold a General (Second tier of three) Amateur radio license, yet in practice I'm totally not instantly competent in those operations. Since I'm a conscientious operator, I always double check myself when I do anything out of my normal use to make sure I'm within my license privileges, but any Tom, ****, or Harry that cares to memorize the test can get the license, instantly forget it all, and terrorize the airwaves.

I don't know if it's in the cards for me soon or not, but part of my long term desires is to get my Private Pilot at minimum, so at least being in the FAA system for part 107 has been a good experience. I felt the 107 test was rather easy, so it does not scare me nearly as much to think of going for Part 61. If you know the material, it's not nearly as intimidating.

 

[Russ Still]

I don't know if it's in the cards for me soon or not, but part of my long term desires is to get my Private Pilot at minimum, so at least being in the FAA system for part 107 has been a good experience. I felt the 107 test was rather easy, so it does not scare me nearly as much to think of going for Part 61. If you know the material, it's not nearly as intimidating.

When you're ready for Private Pilot, Gold Seal is there for you. We had the first comprehensive online private pilot ground school. You can take an extensive test drive for free at:

www.GroundSchool.com

 

[AH-1G]

I have so many unpleasant things I want to tell the geniuses at the FAA, beginning with their lackadaisical reply to closure of testing centers by COVID-19 (too bad, so sad) words just fail me.

Please, spill your guts!!! "I gosta know"?

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

Please, spill your guts!!! "I gosta know"?

Nah the Editor will ban me.

 

[R.Perry]

Personally I think this is a good idea, hopefully they will come up with testing that will insure people need to truly understand the concepts.

If you want to become a private or commercial pilot, you don't just memorize information, you need to be able to apply that information and you need someone to teach you to actually fly and Microsoft Flight Sim won't do it.

I have a relative that told me he could learn to fly just by playing with flight sims. I gave him a reality check ride, he failed.

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

Personally I think this is a good idea, hopefully they will come up with testing that will insure people need to truly understand the concepts.

If you want to become a private or commercial pilot, you don't just memorize information, you need to be able to apply that information and you need someone to teach you to actually fly and Microsoft Flight Sim won't do it.

I have a relative that told me he could learn to fly just by playing with flight sims. I gave him a reality check ride, he failed.

We all know Part 107 is a joke the FAA was forced to come up with after the drone explosion caught them with their pants at half mast. Some dude sitting around at his FAA office in Washingtoon was tasked by some GS-12 with writing a 60 question test on Friday afternoon "and can you have it by Monday, old chap?"

He did the logical thing; grabbed a Private Pilot exam and fined tuned (!) it, leaving in such necessary UAS knowledge as taxiway markings and METARs. The last time a pilot used the word aerodrome Rickenbacker was still flying.

Paper and pencil tests only confirm knowledge, not decision making nor psychomotor skills. Those are honed in the cockpit with a CFI as I learned since the first time I stepped in a cockpit in 1969. And common sense? You either have it or you don't. Even our brothers in airliners seem to be lacking it (Airline crashes caused by over-reliance in automated systems has become the scourge of commercial aviation).

 

[Russ Still]

Actually, I don't think taxiway markings are on the exam, but METARs certainly are and you could validly argue that that is overkill for a drone pilot.

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

Actually, I don't think taxiway markings are on the exam, but METARs certainly are and you could validly argue that that is overkill for a drone pilot.

No? Must have been a bad dream.....

 

[Russ Still]

Runway numbers, yes, and there is a good reason for this. But I'm pretty sure there are no questions about taxiway markings.

We subscribe to most of our competitors' courses and I have seen taxiway markings taught. PIREPs for that matter, too (which have absolutely ZERO value to a remote pilot). But this is probably due to the fact that the people who created the courses didn't have an aviation background beyond drones.

 

[R.Perry]

I'm a person that believes in education, but what I see today is so much different than I grew up with. Several years ago one of my grandsons was living with us, he came home and said he needed a scientific calculator, I asked him why. He said for his geometry class, I thought that was ridiculous. When I went to the school and asked the teacher, I found out he was a music teacher and didn't really know math that well.
So what is my point, as already stated today we depend too much on automation and less on our own learned skills. The 737 had and issue come up that would put the aircraft into a dive, without going into detail it killed a couple hundred people and almost caused the crash of a few others. What happened was the pilots couldn't take control away from the computer. If I remember right the plane would give a stall warning and over speed warning at the same time, and put the plane into a dive without warning. So much for Hal driving, and now they want to give us auto driving cars.

 

[2edgesword]

Some questions have rote answers. Standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is 29.92, standard temperature lapse rate is 2C per 1,000 feet, runway 32 is compass heading 320, etc. Some level of rote memorization is always going to be required to pass the test. Questions may be constructed so that you'll have to know the rote answers to a number of questions in order to formula an answer but you're not going to get away from the need to memorize certain facts.

 

[Russ Still]

Some questions have rote answers. Standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is 29.92, standard temperature lapse rate is 2C per 1,000 feet, runway 32 is compass heading 320, etc.

Yes, of course. That's not what the FAA is referring to as rote memorization. They are referring to the tendency for people to memorize the questions and answers specifically. That's different.

 

[2edgesword]

Yes, of course. That's not what the FAA is referring to as rote memorization. They are referring to the tendency for people to memorize the questions and answers specifically. That's different.

“memorize the questions and answers specific ally” Most my electrical engineering education was spend memorizing questions and answers specifically . It’s one of the reasons I enjoyed math and science, and disliked English composition.

 

[Russ Still]

So your engineering exams were multiple choice and you were given the questions and answer choices in advance?

 

[2edgesword]

So your engineering exams were multiple choice and you were given the questions and answer choices in advance?

No, you memorized formula and constants to make calculations. It basically came down to pulling in the numbers given to you in the questions.

 

[Russ Still]

Ok, so that doesn't describe what the FAA is trying to remedy. You memorized certain things that you needed to know. But you didn't memorize the actual questions and answers.