FAA Written Changed & Scores are Falling: How to Study

Student Pilot FAA written exam grades have fallen by up to 7 to 10% on average in just the last few weeks. So, in this video, I’m going to go over everything you need to know to prepare for and pass the FAA written exam or knowledge exam as they like to call it. This includes what is happening with the FAA private pilot and sport pilot written exams, what I recommend students do in order to successfully pass the FAA written exam, and what Part Time Pilot is doing and has already done to prepare our students to score highly on the exam.

Okay. So, we at Part Time Pilot keep a close close eye on our students’ scores on our practice tests for the private pilot, sport pilot, and even IFR written exams, and how those scores compare to what the students actually get on the FAA exam. And recently, our students’ scores have dropped because of recent changes made to the FAA written exam. Luckily though, none of our students have failed. They just didn’t get the high scores that they wanted. And this is because we preach actually understanding the content in our comprehensive online ground school and only doing test prep at the end, instead of just doing test prep, which a lot of students unfortunately do. We actually put an emphasis on learning the content.

So, what happened? We have been proud to say that over the years our student scores are about the same or even better on the FAA written exam than they are on our practice test. And this is by design. We try to make our practices harder and again that comprehensive learning. However, in the last few weeks, this has not been the case. Our student scores have dropped by about 7 to 10% on average on the actual exam. The last time that this happened was back in 2023. I think it was in the spring. And the FAA had just quietly rolled out a new batch of questions and changed what assortment of questions that they were asking students this time. Well, same thing. And we actually expect this to continue on a more regular basis. You see, in 2020, way back in 2020, remember that year, the FAA contracted a new Airman Certificate Testing Service and announced that over the next several years would make updates to improve the airmen testing process. One of their goals was to completely get rid of what they call question harvesting. This is where test providers would collect feedback on the internet or have their employees go take the test and report back what was on it so that they could tell students as closely as possible the exact questions on the test. This was illegal but it was still happening and you know when you get a lot of people doing it on the internet it can happen. So they plan to get rid of this question harvesting that they call it by changing the questions they use on the test every few months or so. At least that’s what they said. And expanding to more than just multiple-choice question types, question formats like maybe matching images or ordering a list, more interactive type question types. Don’t worry, we haven’t seen them change from the multiple-choice questions yet, but maybe that’s something that the FAA will do in the future. Again, this was one of the reasons we avoided being just a test prep question memorization type of course. Oh, and maybe also because it actually makes you a better and safer pilot to actually have the knowledge. So that’s another big reason why we did it. So, they announced all that back in 2020, but the FAA likes to say they’re going to do something and then not do it until several years later when they quietly roll it out and it surprises everybody.

So, the first real 2023 Update Recap evidence that we saw of this was back in 2023. Like I mentioned again, our student scores dropped and that alerted us to the change. Again, that’s why we kind of monitor it. We did a deep dive, talked to the FAA and came away with the conclusion that they shortened the test to two hours. They got rid of interpolation and multiple-step calculation problems that take a little bit longer time and they started asking more questions around the critical phases of flight like taxi, takeoff, and landing. Well, now here we are in 2025, and again we have a change. So far it seems the change is a new batch of questions that are more situational and scenario-based questions that assess risk management in critical phases and hazardous conditions like the ones students would get in a checkride oral exam. The FAA clearly is trying to test more on the things that keep us and others safe in the air. Again, these are still all multiple-choice. So, what do I recommend students prepare for passing the FAA written exam? Well, you can look at it two ways. You can say, “Man, this sucks. The FAA is making me have to study more and study harder.” By getting rid of the shortcuts like memorizing questions, buying a cheap question prep book, and just going over it over and over again, and just busting out that studying to get the FAA written exam over. Or you can look at it and say, “The FAA is making the written a more meaningful exam, forcing me to study harder and actually learn the concepts at a fundamental level, which will actually make me a better and safer pilot. I bet you can guess which side I’m on. I agree with the last take, and I always have and even more so now that the FAA is kind of changing the test towards that. Too many students were pushing back the actual studying that they had to do to before their checkride and just using test prep strategies to get the FAA written exam out of the way. That made the FAA written sort of a waste of time for those students. If that’s how you treat it, it’s going to be a waste of time for you. It also created a lot more unsafe student pilots flying solo without actually having learned the material fully and understanding the thing that they’re flying. And it also caused students to pay more for flight training because you don’t because when you don’t understand the fundamentals, you’re behind the aircraft mentally and you make more mistakes. When you make mistakes in flight training, what does your instructor do? Well, your instructor is going to make you redo that lesson until you aren’t making mistakes. And every time you redo a lesson, it costs you hundreds of dollars. So now more than ever, I recommend students learn the ground school comprehensively and as early as possible in their training, if not completely. I’ve always said this, but now even more so. Again, this is why our course is structured and created the way it is and why we have recently rolled out a live VIP version of the course, which we plan to do more VIP cohorts for in the near future. I also recommend learning everything in the airman certificate standards or the ACS and adding some special attention to safety of flight topics. This means topics like weather hazards, aircraft control, stalls, wake turbulence, stabilized approaches, crosswinds, unintentional slips, skids, spins, hydroplaning, icing, go-arounds, etc. You get the picture. But again, there is no shortcuts. So don’t just go only studying those things. things I just mentioned because you still could be a student that gets a random draw with four VR questions, three weight and balance questions and five airspace questions or you could be a student, you know, that gets none of those. It’s still a random draw of everything. There are just some recent trends that we are seeing and sharing with you to better prepare you.

Lastly, what are we doing at Part Time Pilot to get our student scores up? Well, we have already added a few new lessons that we originally only had inside of our checkride prep course because it was only something kind of tested during that time. Those are now in the ground school and expanded upon. We’ve expanded upon those as well. We have already added 50 to 100 new questions to our question bank and we’ll be adding more each and every week. We are also adding more visuals to our course to make it more visual and interactive for deeper understanding. Things like moving images or gifs, gifs, I don’t know what you guys call them. And we just recently signed a contract to get some in-flight video lessons filmed and created to be added to the already hundreds of videos that we have inside of the course. When  I set out to make this online ground school, the trickiest thing was to think of and make a course that was for everybody, that worked for everybody, because everybody learns differently.  For example,  I am kind of odd and like to read words on blank white paper when I’m learning something. Yes, images do help, and I  like to listen to audio as well. I’m I  like that. But for whatever reason, I  hate watching videos to learn a topic.  get to the damn point and keep my videos for watching movies and TV and pleasure,  right? But I know so many people who think that’s crazy and so many people who are the opposite.

So, when I made the course, the goal was to always have modes for every learning style and that’s what we are going to continue to  do. So, we already have video, audio,  and written lessons. And the reason why is because it sometimes it just takes the right explanation, the right visual,  the right video, whatever to get something to finally click. So, we’re going to be adding different kinds of visuals to our already existing visuals,  audios, and written lessons inside the  course to again help with that comprehensive understanding inside the ground school, making it more and more comprehensive, less less test preppy because that is what the FAA is doing.  And that is how preparing successfully for not just the written exam, but your flight lessons and your checkride will be going into the future with the FAA. So hopefully you found this video helpful.  And if you want to learn more about  Part Time Pilot, go to  parttimepilot.com. And I’ve written a blog on this subject as well. And you can go and check that out at the link in the description of this video or the description in our social media bios.