FAA Knowledge Test Failures Skyrocket

(Note: i'm only a stalled student and the FAA has NOT yet messed w/ me and/or ruined my life so i haven't yet internalized the negative feelings industry people generally seem to have about dealings with the FAA. (though just from reading over the years it certainly seems they need to be feared) )

That said, i'll comment anyway... because this is the web.

a) I generally second Arsenio's comments. Some of the FAR and or definition of terms questions are hard/annoying, but the ones about reading a chart or calculating fuel etc ? Come on... a pilot had BETTER be able to do those... and you only need a 70% to pass anyway!

b) That "failure rates have quadrupled" line w/o the context of what the values are made me curious. if it went from 20% failure to 80% failure that's something... if it's from 1% to 4%... less interesting.

But check it out, the FAA actually publishes some statistics: http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/test_statistic... (2009 seems to be the latest available on the site)

in 2009 ... for FE of all kinds... the pass rate was 100.00% so a failure rate as a multiple there is mathematically undefined. and only about 70 people even took these tests.

For FOI (fundementals of instruction) 5000 people took it w/ a pass rate of 98.49%... 4x increase there would mean a pass rate of 94%... not GREAT, but doesn't seem like something to write home about.

ATP had a pass rate of 92% for 4000 people. 4x failure rate there would take it down to 68%... that would be pretty bad.

Overall that gives a pre-change failure rate of 400 out of 9000 people or 4.4% and a new failure rate of 17.7% if it's 4x . Clearly though given the very different failure rates of the different groups mentioned, further breakdown should have been provided in the report (and the letter).

Not to mention that any multiple choice exam is going to have a certain level of rote learning to it, which is precisely why we have the oral and practical exam to determine understanding and application. These knowledge tests help to determine weak areas to work on.

I appeared in the FOI test in feb 2011 and failed with flying colors .scored of 68%.
On the Gliems test prep i was scoring in mid and high 90s.And i had studied from the AIH book too.But frankly i depended on Gliems test prep more than the handbook ,as i was told by my fellow cfii students and the instructor himself to study important topics from AIH .
so the first 25 questions of the test were those that i had not seen in test prep at school.
if it helps anyone,there were questions from topics like skill acquisition ,fatigue and test preparation material.so study the AIH in details is the only way to score good on the new test.
Most of the questions were opinion based.For example ,according to the AIH book ( sec 8-3) ,the minimum acceptable standards for passing the checkride should not be introduced until the 3 hours of preparation for the checkride.And there is a question from this topic which i obviously got wrong.
This is like keeping a student in dark and none of my instructors right from my student pilot days followed this. I was told right from the indtoduction what the min acceptable standards are.
I'm going to retake the test and spend $ 150.00 again. It hurts when your money goes wasted,specially when you are working two jobs to support your dream.So this time i will answer the questions based on the AIH.Wish me luck.