SIFT INFORMATION

[64wannabe]

Therefore, I'm hesitant to offer up any study guide, even though it doesn't have anything on it that's not already publicly available from this website and others. I am open to people's thoughts on this matter...

 

I'm sure we all understand where you are coming from Lindsey.

 

There is an AFAST study guide, I'm sure sooner or later we'll be able to buy a SIFT study guide as well.

[Gojeero]

Good evening from sunny Afghanistan. I'm looking to start the process of a Warrant packet. In my reading, I've found it would be wise to order the following books. I did, and please let me know if I can do relatively well on the SIFT by studying these.

 

Military Flight Aptitude Tests, 6/e (Peterson's Master the Military Flight Aptitude Tests)

Arco

How to Solve Algebra Word Problems, 4/e (Arco How to Solve Algebra Word Problems)

Arco

Helicopter Flying Handbook (Updated Edition)

Federal Aviation Administration

The Warrant I talked to said a vigilant soldier, with help from a competent chain of command, can complete the entire process in about 30 days. That's what I'm looking to do upon redeployment, as we will have several changes of command (which will negate my LoRs 2 months after).

Thanks for your time.

 

[Blue2Green4WOFT]

I have to admit, I'm having second thoughts about posting my "guide." For the record, it's not much. A lot of pages, sure, but all that it has is a condensed version of the comments in this thread, and scanned pages from the Barron's book that are applicable to the SIFT. Now, the reason I'm having second thoughts, although I really would like to give back and help out, is two-fold:

 

(1) I have some reliable information that the board members on the USAREC WOFT board do not see your SIFT score. If you passed, that's it. So my 73 is essentially worthless except as a matter of personal pride.

 

(2) A Warrant Officer on another website remarked that "there's an awful lot of information out there about a test that requires a non-disclosure agreement to take." To be honest, I clicked through that stuff on the test pretty quick so I don't remember a non-disclosure agreement and what it entailed. I would think that as long as we aren't giving away specific questions from the test, we should be fine, but it does worry me that perhaps we are giving away too much info and that could be viewed in a negative light by Senior Warrant Officers who do frequent these boards but do not post. Obviously I do not want to compromise my own packet.

 

Therefore, I'm hesitant to offer up any study guide, even though it doesn't have anything on it that's not already publicly available from this website and others. I am open to people's thoughts on this matter...

 

kind of hypocritical after not hesitating to ask others for as much info as possible about the sift after they took it but thats just my two cents...I do agree with Tydaddy though on his remarks about being a perspective future leader and initiative

[Lindsey]

kind of hypocritical after not hesitating to ask others for as much info as possible about the sift after they took it but thats just my two cents...I do agree with Tydaddy though on his remarks about being a perspective future leader and initiative

 

I did post up my rather extensive comments after taking the SIFT earlier in this thread...just FYI.

[usarmycadet]

is the part of army aviation info is the same as helicopter knowledge from the AFAST?

[d10]

kind of hypocritical after not hesitating to ask others for as much info as possible about the sift after they took it but thats just my two cents...I do agree with Tydaddy though on his remarks about being a perspective future leader and initiative

 

That's an interesting prospective.

[leapfox125]

Go in to take the SIFT on wednesday. After that my packet is complete. Hopefully I will be able to attend battalion boards this month.

 

Lindsey, I too have heard things about the aptitude tests (in general, whether it be aviation or what not). When I spoke with a current warrant officer about one year ago (WO2, fresh out of flight school) he told me that he barely passed the AFAST. Like a 115 or something like that.

 

Second, I spoke to a member of the WOFT boards, and I asked her for advice and opinions on my packet. SHE reviewed my packet and flipped through the pages without speaking for a few minutes. Then I heard an "ahhh". She flipped to the page with my APFT score. Will not post exact score, but it's high up there. She then talked to me for about 5 minutes on how important that score was. She said it shows high integrity and commitment to achieving something difficult and it reflects highly on your personality.

All that being said, that should help with the stress of the SIFT. IMO, if you just get a decent score, somewhere between 55-65, and your APFT is a 300, you are high on the list of priority. We'll see if what I say is true...even so, I've studied intensively, especially on non-related, but useful in its own right, brain teasers. I highly recommend trying brain teasers every day, it gets your brain started/warmed-up. I always start out with brain teasers before I study, I feel like I get the most work accomplished and it makes me happy because it reduces the stress of being pressured with time constraints, and yet it still helps you achieve a desired result, which is to activate areas of your brain that you may had not been using previously. Something like that.

[Blue2Green4WOFT]

That's an interesting prospective.

 

Just my thoughts/opinion...as the old saying goes, opinions are like a**holes, everyones got one and they all stink

[Lindsey]

EDIT: Not worth it.

[Blue2Green4WOFT]

EDIT: I realized how childish this post looked

[Lindsey]

I already posted my take of exam and answered questions asked previously in this thread by others after i took it...FYI

 

So did I. That's precisely my point. And I'm done with this discussion, good luck with your packet--and I say that sincerely. Hopefully you don't hit as many hurdles as I have.

[Blue2Green4WOFT]

and to you as well, I'm not trying to be a prick I was just stating an opinion to the previous post when you asked for thoughts, nothing more nothing less, I did not mean to disrespect anyone on this board and I am truly sorry if I did. I do hope you get the matters resolved that you need so you can complete your packet.

[Rob1341]

Can anyone speak to the level of difficulty of the hidden figures section of the sift in comparison to that on the afoqt practice tests in the Petersons study guide? I'm looking for someone to say it's 100x easier, if I keep looking at these I'm going to end up cross eyed and fail my eye exam.

[Lindsey]

Can anyone speak to the level of difficulty of the hidden figures section of the sift in comparison to that on the afoqt practice tests in the Petersons study guide? I'm looking for someone to say it's 100x easier, if I keep looking at these I'm going to end up cross eyed and fail my eye exam.

The difficult part is that there are 50 of them in 5 minutes.

[tydaddy]

 

Can anyone speak to the level of difficulty of the hidden figures section of the sift in comparison to that on the afoqt practice tests in the Petersons study guide? I'm looking for someone to say it's 100x easier, if I keep looking at these I'm going to end up cross eyed and fail my eye exam.

Its nothing you can study for. Im pretty sure not one question took longer than 3-4 seconds to figure out...study for the math..study for the aviation knowledge. The rest of the exam is going to test what it is designed to test.

[Rob1341]

Thanks, I've been studying math and aviation. I was just trying to get more comfortable with these hidden figures. This is one of the sections where wrong answers hurt you correct?

[Lindsey]

Thanks, I've been studying math and aviation. I was just trying to get more comfortable with these hidden figures. This is one of the sections where wrong answers hurt you correct?

Unfortunately, yes

[I3uller]

Go in to take the SIFT on wednesday. After that my packet is complete. Hopefully I will be able to attend battalion boards this month.

 

Lindsey, I too have heard things about the aptitude tests (in general, whether it be aviation or what not). When I spoke with a current warrant officer about one year ago (WO2, fresh out of flight school) he told me that he barely passed the AFAST. Like a 115 or something like that.

 

Second, I spoke to a member of the WOFT boards, and I asked her for advice and opinions on my packet. SHE reviewed my packet and flipped through the pages without speaking for a few minutes. Then I heard an "ahhh". She flipped to the page with my APFT score. Will not post exact score, but it's high up there. She then talked to me for about 5 minutes on how important that score was. She said it shows high integrity and commitment to achieving something difficult and it reflects highly on your personality.

 

All that being said, that should help with the stress of the SIFT. IMO, if you just get a decent score, somewhere between 55-65, and your APFT is a 300, you are high on the list of priority. We'll see if what I say is true...even so, I've studied intensively, especially on non-related, but useful in its own right, brain teasers. I highly recommend trying brain teasers every day, it gets your brain started/warmed-up. I always start out with brain teasers before I study, I feel like I get the most work accomplished and it makes me happy because it reduces the stress of being pressured with time constraints, and yet it still helps you achieve a desired result, which is to activate areas of your brain that you may had not been using previously. Something like that.

 

Taking it tomorrow as well. Good luck to you, sir. I'll pass along my thoughts sometime tomorrow night.

[Lindsey]

Good luck to both of you!

[64wannabe]

Does anyone know if the active duty woc board see's your sift score? I had the education center testing administrator tell me today that they don't.

[ftxag76]

Does anyone know if the active duty woc board see's your sift score? I had the education center testing administrator tell me today that they don't.

I've heard the same thing from various people on this site.

[tydaddy]

 

I'm not going to respond as harshly as they would over at professionalsoldier.com, but before asking questions, it might behoove you to read the entire thread. I know, it takes a lot of effort (sense the sarcasm?) You are a prospective warrant officer (leader and technical expert) after all!

[I3uller]

Finished the SIFT today and scored a 66. I'm just going to take Lindsey's format and fill in my own thoughts on the test. Could be helpful as the test can be wildly different for each person.

 

 

General thoughts:

Simple Drawings

Pretty straight forward stuff. There are a bunch of different themes of shapes for each question, some of them actually take a couple seconds to be sure but for the most part this is an exercise in your reflexes. I found it sort of rough as you have to immediately fire away extremely fast in the first section without any chance to warm your brain up. I got about 83 of them done.

Hidden Figures

This section I was much slower at and only answered about 15 out of 50. Very similar to the study guides. Not much else to say about these.

Army Aviation Information Test

I'm a rotary PPL so much of this was review. They throw in a few tricky ones in here but take a look at your Helicopter Handbook and you should do fine. Don't just look at aerodynamics though, review it all including airspace classifications, flying methods and techniques, etc. Luckily I remembered most of it from ground school but I mostly paid attention to the aerodynamics and got caught off guard on a few of the questions. Overall I think I did very well on this section. Had plenty of time as well.

Spatial Apperception

Again, study the study guides. The drawings are slightly different but the concept is the same. I actually found these to be easier than those in the study guides. Another section I felt I did well on. Plenty of time for this.

Reading Comprehension

I was used to the SAT style reading comprehension tests but the SIFT was much more military-centric. There are some standard passages but many are filled with "Army talk" and can take a couple read throughs to really understand. As Lindsey said, answer only with the information given in the passage and more importantly remember to answer the MOST correct answer. I think I did well on this section too. Plenty of time here.

Math

This was by far my weakest area coming into the test. I haven't touched anything with math for about 8 years and literally had to relearn how to do subtraction by hand. Yes, that bad. It was very noticeable when I would get a question right or wrong here as the next question would either be notably harder or easier. Know your fractional exponents (64^-1/3, stuff like that), speed over distance, and get on your algebra. Another thing to note here is that even with the technically easy math, they phrase it and write it out in the answers in the most confusing way possible and generally add three steps on top of what the core of the problem really is. Just keep yourself organized and work down the line. I feel like I did really poorly here and didn't finish before the time ran out. I just suck at Math, it is what it is. I still got a decent score though so I think this genuinely proves that even if you are lacking on one section you can still do well on the overall test.

Mechanical

This is the section that I enjoyed studying the most before the test and I felt I did well overall on this section. As opposed to Lindsey I'd say that my test was the opposite having about 70 percent graphic problems and 30 percent word problems. Studying the guides is a good idea for this section but as with the Math section, they take things you think you know and add on extra elements that will confuse you and really make you work it out logically. There's also some stuff in here that is very specific and if it weren't for my adamant extracurricular interest in science, I never would have known. I think this section tests general reasoning and aptitude better than any other as a lot of this can't be studied for. I think I did pretty well on this section and finished before time elapsed.

Overall Thoughts:

Like Lindsey, I thought the SIFT was a really good balance of material you can study for, and general aptitude measurement. It's also an extremely fair test, allowing you to still do well if you aren't particularly good in one specific section but make up for it in others. I would say focus the most on studying Math and Aviation Knowledge if you aren't familiar with it. Definitely look through all the Mechanical Aptitude material to get a feel for what you'll see but be prepared to use your own reasoning and logic there. I think the test does a great job at measuring true aptitude and not just study skills. If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to PM me.

[Yamer]

does anyone knkw the score ranges yet? how does a 66 play out? whats perfect?. sry been out of the loop for a while now and trying to catch up

[tydaddy]

does anyone knkw the score ranges yet? how does a 66 play out? whats perfect?. sry been out of the loop for a while now and trying to catch up

Please refer to 2 posts above...this and most questions have been answered.