Review: Aviationexam ATPL Question Bank

I’ve mentioned Aviationexam several times in previous posts, especially during the final stretch of CPL theory. Now I’m looking back at the tools that have ben vital to me during my own studies, and seeing how they can be useful for my own students. Today I’m sharing my review of Aviationexam ATPL Question Bank, and how I believe it will help you on your journey to either the CPL or ATPL exams.

Important features of Aviationexam

There are many options out there for question banks, but there are a couple very important features of Aviationexam that made it the right choice for me.

✅ Cross-platform and 100% offline support (none of the other provide this)

The mobile apps are what really makes Aviationexam stand out from the competition. After you’ve downloaded the entire database to your phone or tablet device, you can practice wherever you are - even at 30 000 ft in the back of an airliner. This alone put Aviationexam well above any of the other question banks i tested.

This meant that I could practice when commuting to work, or just about anywhere. Just open the app, and start. Accessibility makes it easier to do more often, and that’s exactly what you have to do if you want to pass the exams.

✅ Proper filtering (only one of the other provide this)

Since I was doing “only” the CPL theory, which is a subset of the complete ATPL, I wanted to filter out the questions that weren’t relevant to me. In Aviationexam this is as easy as just selecting CPL in the dropdown. Most other question banks only give you the entire set, without the option to filter.

✅ Explanations, comments and “Official exam appearance”

You don’t get just the correct answer - you also get the explanation of why this answer is correct. However, sometimes you will find even better explanations in the comments from other students (although not working while offline). This is where you find the real gold. This is basically how I kept my motivation up. I didn’t feel alone in this mess after reading some the frustration shared by others, and also lots of useful information and tips. I made sure to contribute my own comments where relevant.

Another very useful feature related to this, is the option for users to select if a question was seen in an exam recently or not. I made sure to mark questions I recognized from my own exams, and highly encourage everyone else to contribute in this way as well. The best part of this, is that you can select to only get questions that have been marked as seen recently when you start your study session.

Statistics

There are several statistics and progress tracking available, making it easy to spot your problem areas - and see how prepared you are for the actual exam.

Aviationexam also has a new system, that’s currently in beta, giving you even better statistics directly on the dashboard.

My tips on how to get the most out of Aviationexam

• Use question flags to flag questions you need to review
• When getting closer to your exam, use the filter for recently seen questions to get the most of your study sessions
• Read the comments
• Use the mobile apps

How far away from the exam is Aviationexam?

Some of the questions are 100% identical. Some are 75% identical. And some are just missing in the question banks.

Since I spent quite a while doing my exams, for various reasons, I can also say that in my experience - the Aviationexam question bank has improved a lot, and are more similar to the actual exams now than it was when I started studying.

Why do we need question banks?

The following screenshot basically sums it all up:

You will get insane questions, and you will get questions that have you questioning your life choices. The ECQB (the EASA question bank used by the competent authorities for exams) are made up of questions submitted from all the various member states. Some of them clearly very poorly translated from some European language. Some of them related to some obscure system that hasn’t been used since before EASA, or the color of AVGAS 80 (which you won’t find anywhere anymore).

Some questions are specific to the systems of Airbus. Some are specific to the systems of Boeing. And some of them won’t tell you which one the question writer was thinking about, and to make it worse - the answers include one answer that is correct for Airbus and one that is correct for Boeing. Too bad for you if you get the one where they were thinking about the Embraer instead.

And most of the questions are designed to simply trick you, not test your actual knowledge.

And this is why you need to practice using question banks. You need to learn to read the questions. To read the answers. And to see through the trickery.

Do I recommend it?

Absolutely! I do!

Enough that I reached out to Aviationexam to ask them for a discount code for you - so go ahead and enter the code LIMANOVEMBER when you purchase your subscription (using my affiliate link).

• Review
• CPL-Theory