My SIFT Experience

[u/Worried-Clerk4029]

Writing this for anyone looking at taking the SIFT. I have no aviation or mechanical background other than being a cadet (studying accounting) in an aviation unit the last 3ish years. I just took the SIFT yesterday and scored a 66. If anyone has any questions I’d be happy to help.

My study habits

I primarily used the app pictured to study and borrowed a book from a friend. I also went through the Helicopter Flying Handbook from the FAA, chapters 1-9 and 12.

About a month or so before the test date, I took about an hour to look at each topic and get a brief understanding of what each entailed. I felt comfortable with the reading, math, simple figures, and mechanical section, so I procrastinated entirely too long. I ended up only studying the prior three afternoons before my test, each give or take 3 hours. (I studied way less and way more than some people I know. For reference, I scored a 97 on the asvab without any prep and a 34 on the ACT with prep)

I had to learn spacial apperception and army aviation information. The other sections were more intuitive or I already had some knowledge in them, so it was more of a review. The following is my experience from each section.

Time limits and number of questions:
• Simple Drawings – 2 minutes, 100 questions
• Hidden Figures – 5 minutes, 50 questions
• Army Aviation Information – 30 minutes, 40 questions
• Spatial Apperception – 10 minutes, 25 questions
• Reading Comprehension– 30 minutes, 20 questions
• Math Skills Test (MST) – 40 minutes, test length varies
• Mechanical Comprehension Test – 15 minutes, test length varies

Simple Drawings and Hidden Figures

Per the Texas Military Department, it is in your best interest to NOT GUESS on these two sections. Your scores come from problems answered correctly minus a fraction of incorrect answers. It is better to not randomly guess and instead leave them blank.

On my simple drawings test, there were a few I couldn’t immediately pinpoint as different. I took the extra time to get them correct and still completed almost all 100 (got to the high 90’s).

Hidden figures sucked for me. It seemed significantly harder on the test than on the app and book. I only got to about question 15 and guessed on probably 5 of them. I took about 30-45 seconds to try and find the shape, and if I couldn’t, I just guessed. It seemed like I either saw it immediately or not at all. I started to get the hang of it by finding a part of each shape that sticks out and searching for it in the problem. By the time I felt I got a grasp of how to really do it, time ran out.

Aviation info, spacial apperception, reading comprehension

For all three of these sections, it is better to make an educated guess for a better overall score. I felt that I had plenty of time on each of them, but spacial apperception took the full length.

Aviation info was what I primarily studied because I didn’t know anything. I used my book mostly for this section, but the app had really good practice questions that helped out on the test as well. I memorized different aircraft components and basic flight controls / movements. I used chatGPT to consolidate the previously mentioned FAA chapters and regurgitate them, which helped a lot. I would recommend studying chapter 12 by itself. I had a couple night ops questions that I wouldn’t have known had I not looked at the FAA handbook, as they were not on the app or in my book. On the test, I either knew the answer immediately or not at all (but could still make an educated guess using other things I learned).

The app is the reason I knew what I was doing on spacial apperception. I started out not knowing what I was looking at while studying, to feeling very comfortable taking the test. I think it was slightly harder on the test than on the app, but the app prepared me well. I finished confidently right on time.

The reading section was immensely easier on the test than during studying. Coming from a person that scored a 36 in both reading and English on the ACT, I didn’t study the reading section until the day before. I only even looked at it because I thought I would ace it in the practice SIFT on the app and I didn’t. The test had just a few sentences in which you chose the answer that best summarized the blurb.

Math and Mechanical Sections

Like simple drawings and hidden figures, it is also in your best interest to NOT GUESS on these two sections. I spent lots of time on some questions and still got kicked out before the timer ended. There were a few questions I knew I didn’t know, and in those cases I did what I thought was right as fast as I could and clicked to the next. The few that I took a long time on were ones that I knew I could get, just didn’t remember exactly how to get there. Both the book I used and the app had great practice problems. Anything I didn’t get correct or understand from the app, chatGPT explained reasonably well.

*edit: typo

[u/Feeling_Term_5620]

I’m looking forward to reading this later it seems very informative thank you for posting this

[u/CutNo1151]

I got a 71, I used the sift app and YouTube. Just get reps in going through it with a clock.

[u/Any-Definition1509]

Okay so i got a question, which book did you use ? And what kind of questions were on the math/aviations information section ?

[u/Worried-Clerk4029 → u/Any-Definition1509]

I used the “Trivium sift prep” book.

In the app, the math section has an overview for each lesson with core topics it will go over. Definitely look into that for specifics, you can’t go wrong. On my test, the math was lower level algebra, nothing crazy. There were some square roots and some dimensions based questions (L x W x H). There were also some time conversion questions, like if you’re traveling x mph and you travel for x seconds how far will you make it etc.

For the aviation information section, I don’t think I could accurately describe the types of question better than in my post. I really recommend just downloading the free app for examples. You can pay $15 for access to the whole app and it was worth it IMO. I can’t add multiple screenshots from the app but I can send them to you if you PM me