User Guide

We're expert teachers in the field of aviation, so rest assured we offer here the best advice possible on how to study for your theoretical knowledge exams!

Firstly, if “school” seems a long time ago to you, you'll find that the method you used to study will often not “work” for you in later life… you'll need to re-learn how to learn! We recommend using the following method:

• Make sure you buy our “full” course material, not just the progress tests and end of course exams (the question bank). The official exams will test your understanding of the subject – and questions are changed regularly by the authority, so it's no use just learning answers to questions – you really need to understand the subject!
• Read each page of the course carefully. Our courses are very concise, and each page contains a lot of information – often in graphical form. As a wise instructor once said, “Teach slowly, learn quickly”, so take your time!
• When the course material prompts you, take the progress test. Progress tests check your understanding of the material up to that point. Review your results, look at our detailed explanations for each question, and then (if necessary) go back to the course material and revise the study area for the question you got wrong. Then move on and continue studying the next part of the course, following this process until you reach the end of the course.
• Once the end of the course is reached, you are ready to take our end of course exam. The important point here is to remember that this exam is part of the learning process! Take the exam, review your results, look at our detailed explanations for each question, and then if necessary go back to the course material and revise the study area for the question you got wrong.
• Importantly, you really ought to take our end of course exam multiple times. We have a large exam question bank for each subject, and (uniquely), using our system, you won't see any repeat questions until you have seen all of our questions. No other provider does this! In fact, you'll find you will need to take our end of course exam (for each subject) around 10 or 12 times before you start seeing repeat questions!
• For the reason above, we recommend you undertake each subject end of course exam a minimum of 10 times, and should be aiming to be achieving marks in the high 80s and early 90s. That way, you'll be (pretty much) guaranteed to pass the official exam with ease!

Registering is a simple process, and allows us to keep in touch about news and events that you may find useful.

To Register, all you need to do is create a Username that is unique to our system. It must be 3 to 30 characters, using letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens only, so no spaces or email addresses are allowed. This is a one-off process, and you will not be able to change it, so make it sensible!

After that, create a password of your choice. We don't ever get to see your password, and we will never ask for it. Your password must be at least 8 characters long. Any letters, numbers or special characters are fine, but it can't be a very common or very repetitive password, or contain your username or email address.

Enter a valid email address that will be used by the system to allow you to confirm your email address with us.

By registering, you agree with our Terms and Conditions, our Data Protection Policy, and our Email Policy. Preferences on the types of email you wish to receive from us can be configured from your Dashboard once you have logged in. More information is available from the site under the “Help” menu.

Your account is unique to you. You can Login and Logout at any time you choose.

Whilst you may use this system on as many devices as you like, you can only be logged in on one device at a time.

Once you Login on a new device, you will automatically be logged out of any other device that you were logged in with.

This allows us to keep track of the lesson and slide you have reached in each of the courses you are studying, to enable you to “pick up where you left off” at any time, in any place, on any device, anywhere!

From your Dashboard, you are able to change details as required should you need to:

• your email address, postal address and mobile number, in Your details;
• your password, in Change password;
• what types of email you are happy to accept from us, in your Email preferences.

Your username can't be changed, and your name, and a mobile number confirmed by text, can only be changed by our team.

We need accurate information if you change your details since we use that information (especially your postal address) if we need to fulfil your product orders with us that need posting!

We regularly check for spoof information in any of your details, and your account may end up being suspended if we find data that might indicate attempts to fraudulently use our system.

Your Dashboard's menu also gives you short-cut access to many of the features described below.

We provide different types of access to our course material, and you purchase the access type you want, which lasts for a pre-determined period: currently one month for each month you buy, and you can choose up to 12 months at a time in your basket.

The different types of access to our courses are FULL COURSE (shown on the site as “Full course”) or TEST & EXAM QUESTION BANK (shown as “Tests & exams only”) (see below).

FULL COURSE

This gives you access to all of our course material, extra resources, tests and exams, unlimited one-to-one instructor support, course completion certificates, and exam readiness certificates (when the appropriate criteria have been met). Note that if you purchase a FULL COURSE, the TEST & EXAM QUESTION BANK is automatically included FREE OF CHARGE.

TEST & EXAM QUESTION BANK

This type of access is suitable for those who just wish to use our “question bank” for revision, although this is not a recommended way to study!

You can choose to buy TEST & EXAM QUESTION BANK for any or all of our courses. This just gives you access to the tests and exams (question banks) associated with each course, with restricted support. Explanations are shown for questions where an explanation is available, and the Ask an Instructor page isn't available for these courses. You will not receive a course completion certificate, but you will receive an exam readiness certificate if applicable to that course (when the appropriate criteria have been met). Note you do not need to buy TEST & EXAM QUESTION BANK if you have already bought a FULL COURSE.

You can buy Ground School Vouchers right here to give to someone, or to use yourself. Vouchers are either for a monetary value or for a specific product. Monetary value vouchers can be used to buy anything^*1 from our site. Product vouchers are for specific products.

Here's how it works...

If you don't already have an account, you will need to REGISTER (for free) and confirm your email address by clicking on the link in the email we send you. Then you just need to LOGIN and purchase a Ground School Voucher. On completion of your purchase, your voucher code is shown on screen and emailed to you with your receipt straight away. You can then print the Voucher's certificate, or save it as a PDF, from My vouchers (“Certificate to print”), and email it or print it and send it to the recipient.

On receiving a Voucher, you just need to follow the instructions on the Voucher, which are:

• Visit the web site shown on the voucher
• If you don't already have an account, REGISTER to create one, and confirm your email address via the email you receive
• LOGIN to your account
• Click “My account” at the top of any page to open your Dashboard, and select My vouchers
• Enter the voucher code into the box and press the “Register my voucher” button
• If your voucher is for a monetary amount, the value of the Voucher will be added to your account and used when you make purchases from our system
• If your voucher is for a product, then the product will be added to your account under the My courses menu for you to access

^*1 You cannot use a voucher to purchase a voucher.

The search shows you the results of your search of a course for a word or words, as you type. Any slide within the course whose title or narration contains all of your search words will be returned. Words are found in any form (“altimeters” finds “altimeter”), common words are ignored, and acronyms also find their meaning.

The results are shown over the page you're on. Each result shows the slide's lesson and the sentence that teaches your words, with a map of the lessons marking every slide found.

When you find the slide you are looking for, clicking it will take you to that slide in its lesson, and close the search. A bar above the slide then lets you move forwards and backwards through your search results, across the course's lessons. “Hear it explained” plays the narration from the sentence that teaches your words, and the X closes the bar.

Once you select to sit a new Test or Exam (Sit a test or exam), you will be offered the courses (for which you have access) to choose from. Choose a course to see its tests and exams, and press “Start” on the one you want. Tests are informal tests that check your understanding of the recently learnt area of the material for a course. Exams are usually taken at the end of your study for a given course, and these count towards your Exam Readiness Certificate (where appropriate to that course).

Each Test or Exam has an associated number of questions, plus a pass mark, and a time limit. Each Test or Exam will make use of our own question bank. So although the Test or Exam consists of only (for example) 20 questions, these are drawn from a much larger bank of questions each time you sit this Test or Exam. In other words, different questions are asked each time you sit the Test/Exam. Unlike other systems, we don't show you repeat questions until you have seen all questions!

The Test/Exam screen consists of a question, multiple answers, and a question navigator (“Questions”) to the right of the question. On a phone or small tablet, show the navigator with the question-number button (for example “3/20”) between “Previous” and “Next”. The Test/Exam Timer (your time remaining to complete the Test/Exam) resides towards the top right of the screen.

The question navigator colours indicate which questions are answered and unanswered (by colour), and the current question has a border around it.

To select your answer for a given question, make your selection on-screen by clicking an answer. That answer's letter will turn yellow, and the appropriate question block within the question navigator will change to the answered colour (dark blue).

You can ‘unselect’ your answer by clicking the same answer again. This is useful if you are using the test or exam for revision, since all your unanswered questions can then be easily identified when you come to review your results, and the ones you purposely left unanswered are the ones you can check the correct answer and explanation for.

You may answer questions in any order by clicking the appropriate number in the question Navigator, and you may change your answer to any question until either the Test/Exam Timer expires, or you select “Finish” and then “Finish and see my score”.

The Test/Exam Timer continues to run in real time, even if you move away from the Ground School web site, or turn off your device. However, providing you have time remaining, you can return to the Test/Exam again via the Test & exam history page (“Continue”).

Once you finish the Test/Exam (or the Test/Exam Timer expires), you will be shown the Test/Exam Review Summary Page. This will give you summary information about your performance, including Pass/Fail, and offer you the opportunity to review each question (providing your access has not expired for the course concerned).

Ask an Instructor is an easy way of contacting an expert on anything within a course you are studying, but is only available while you have the FULL COURSE open.

From the Ask an Instructor page, select the course you wish to ask a question about and type your question, then press “Send Message”. We'll receive the question, and answer it promptly. Replies go to your system registered email address, and are kept in My questions.

Don't be afraid to keep asking for clarification on things you continually don't understand. If necessary, we'll even give you a call on the phone to chat about it. That's why it's worth adding your mobile number in Your details!

Available via Study statistics, this page shows you:

• Your performance for each of your courses, with information on the number of tests and exams you've taken, the number of questions you've seen, your average mark, and your pass rate (the number of times you've passed compared with the number of times you've taken them), for the course's progress tests and its exams separately
• The study time for each of your courses, broken down into course study time and test/exam study time, week by week as well as in total
• Each course's latest exam marks, against the pass mark

If you have technical issues with accessing any of our material, email support is the initial contact method (see our Contact Us page).

However, we're not one of those companies that just leaves you in the lurch with non-personal email exchanges! If necessary, we'll talk to you directly on the phone to give you every assistance in solving the issue.