YES!

The questions in our GroundSchool FAA written test preparation software (and other materials) are the actual questions that you will see when you go to take your FAA written exams.

In a word, YES. GroundSchool provides actual, current (2010) FAA questions. These are continuously reviewed and updated by our editorial staff. If you conscientiously study using our GroundSchool FAA written test prep software, you will find the questions and answers extremely familiar when you go to take your actual test. In fact, if you're like most people who have done a good job studying using GroundSchool, you will not only pass your test, but you will ACE it.

Two small exceptions: There are two tiny exceptions to this statement: One, occasionally there may be a small number of questions that have not yet reached us due to the way that the FAA informs test prep sources of updates. Such changes are highly likely to be quite minor and rest assured that if we don't have it yet, it's highly unlikely that any other written test prep provider does either. Two, occasionally the FAA throws in ungraded “experimental” questions. We are not informed of such questions, but they are not graded, either. These two exceptions are truly minor. Your score overwhelmingly depends on you studying the questions as we have them presented.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. Will these questions be the same if I am taking my test at a CATS or LASERGRADE center?

A. Yes, they will. Virtually everybody takes their FAA written tests at a CATS or LASERGADE center (even if this is located in your FBO or Flight School). The FAA questions are the same no matter where you take the test.

Q. Will these questions be the same if I am taking my written test at an FAA written test prep center in Le Bourget, France?

A. Again, it doesn't matter where you take the test or with what provider. The test bank that your test will be generated from will be the same.

Q. I saw an FAA PDF document on the internet that had (for example) 512 questions for a given test, but your test bank shows more (for example, 954). If I use GroundSchool, will I be studying too many questions?

A. Absolutely not. The PDFs that the FAA publishes have an incomplete, sample only test bank that does not reflect the totality of the questions that you might be asked. If you study using only the FAA PDF (which by the way doesn't have correct answers and explanations, as our software does), you will most likely be studying far less than is required and will perhaps severely hurt your chances of doing well in the process. In a change from the practice of several years ago, the FAA no longer releases the full test banks directly via the website.

Q. I saw an FAA PDF document on the internet that had (for example) 413 questions, but your test bank shows fewer (for example 341). What's going on?

A. If we have fewer questions for a given test than the FAA has in a question PDF, then this is what's going on: the FAA PDFs represent test banks. Each test bank contains one or more tests. For example, the FAA Private Pilot test bank contains questions that apply to the private pilot airplane test and private pilot helicopter test (among others). In GroundSchool, the questions are carefully sorted so that you only study the questions that apply to your exact test. So therefore, in this example, of the 413 questions in the bank, only a subset of those apply to your particular test. This doesn't mean that 341 questions (from this example) necessarily come from the 413 in the PDF – it could be, for example, that 200 come from the PDF and another 141 come to us from the question list that the FAA does not publicly release via its website.

Q. What is the main factor as to how well I will do on my written test?

A. The main factor in how well you will do in preparing for your written test is how much time and effort you put into studying using GroundSchool. Some people unfortunately put too much emphasis on making sure that they have the absolute latest update of the questions and not enough time studying. Look - the reality is that FAA test banks do change with time, but the change tends to be relatively gradual - maybe a dozen or three questions typically change in a given test bank per year. This means while an FAA written test prep book from, say, 2007, is severely out of date, if the version of our test prep you are using shows the current year, then you are just fine

There's absolutely no benefit to you in spending hours obsessing over the technical details of the FAA written test banks - leave that to us. Rather, concentrate on studying the material as presented, and you're highly likely to do just great, just like thousands of pilots and mechanics before you.

Q. Do you offer a "Passing Guarantee?"

A. No -- and for good reason! Our philosophy is not only to provide the best FAA written test prep out there, but also provide it at the lowest possible cost. Compare us to our competitors and we're confident that you'll see that we provide more for less, including free lifetime updates for our GroundSchool PC products. The vast majority of the tens of thousands of pilots and mechanics who have used our FAA written test prep materials since we started offering them in 1997 pass their tests.

So- why don't we offer a passing guarantee? In short, because passing guarantees are useless gimmicks. If you don't know any better, such a guarantee may at first sound comforting when you go to buy a test prep, but in the end all such guarantees amount to is that those who study hard and put in the time necessary to learn the material end up subsidizing those who didn't put in the time and effort necessary to pass. Add in the time and complexity involved in administering such a guarantee program and you'll see that such programs are really expensive and basically worthless.

Not convinced? Take a closer look at our competitors' offerings. If you see their websites, they write terms such as "Passing Guarantee!" in big prominent letters. It may seem at first that this applies to all of their test prep products. Look more closely, however, and you'll see (at least, at this time of this writing) that this guarantee only applies to their overpriced "courses", not their regular test prep books and software. These "courses" typically amount to little more than you getting a short outline on a block of questions (far less, typically, than what we provide via our question explanations) followed by some questions to learn. After you go through several such blocks, they give you several simulated FAA written tests as a "final exam." If you pass those exams with a high score you're entitled to their guarantee. Well, guess what. You can do the same thing for far cheaper with our software. You can take an unlimited number of practice tests using GroundSchool and then go take your real test when your scores are good. For example, for our online instructor endorsement service, we require that people take 5 practice tests, each with a score of 90% or above. In the 10 years that we've been offering this service, not one person that we know of who has used this service has ever failed their exam.

Just say no to worthless "guarantees!" Say YES to our lower priced and more efficient study methods!

Thank you for checking out GroundSchool!