The FAA ATSA: Seven Sections and the Mechanics That Cost Marks

The FAA says the Air Traffic Skills Assessment is an aptitude test, that no preparation is necessary, and that it endorses no practice test. That is fair as far as it goes: you cannot learn working memory in a fortnight. But the candidates who write up their ATSA afterwards keep describing the same thing. Several sections have mechanics that cost marks for reasons that have nothing to do with aptitude, and knowing them before the day is the difference. This is a section-by-section guide to those mechanics.

What the FAA publishes, and what it does not

The FAA publishes the length of the sitting, the result categories and the rules on validity and retakes. It publishes nothing about the sections themselves: no list, no timings, no scoring. The one official detail about the content comes from a January 2023 audit by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General, which found that the ATSA was built from commercial software supplied by two vendors, Airways New Zealand and SHL/CEB, and that the FAA validated 15 of their assessments and kept 7.

Everything below about the seven sections comes from candidate reports between 2016 and 2022. They agree with each other closely, but treat exact timings and counts as approximate. Since the move to Pearson VUE, reported in late 2021, candidates also say the keys changed, so older write-ups that mention plastic keypad overlays or function keys describe a slightly different test.

1. Number Differences: the stream does not wait

A digit appears for about two seconds and disappears. For every digit after the first, you type the difference between it and the one before, on the number pad. The difference is always 1 to 4, so the sum is never the problem. The round runs on a clock of about two minutes, and there are about eight rounds; candidates say it lasts ages.

The trap is the chain. Every answer depends on remembering the previous digit, so one slip followed by a guess at the next digit costs you the next few answers too. When you lose the thread, let one digit go by, fix the new one in your head and restart from the next. Missing one on purpose is cheaper than missing four by accident.

2. Variables: store the result, not the formula

Letters are given values one at a time, then asked for, usually out of order. Later sets add equations, such as A = C + 1 after C = 2, which flash and go. The answer window is a few seconds and an unanswered question simply disappears.

Most lost marks here are not forgotten values but values attached to the wrong letter, or equations stored as formulas and worked out too late. Work each equation out the moment it appears and store the answer: not A equals C plus one, but A is 3.

3. The spatial test: find the eye first

A picture shows a large aircraft and a small one, with a statement such as "The small aircraft is on the left". You press T or F within about two seconds. Left and right are the large aircraft’s, not yours, so when it points down the screen its left is your right. On some pictures an eye symbol sits on the nose looking back, which reverses left and right again. Candidates say the eye is small and easy to miss, and every missed eye is a wrong answer you were certain of. Read each picture in the same order: nose, side, eye, then the word.

4. The collision simulation: separation first, arithmetic second

Numbered objects move across a field, some on paths that will meet. You type an object’s number to remove it, aiming to prevent every collision with as few removals as possible. When nothing will meet, you press 0 to say so. In the second part, arithmetic questions appear over the field for a couple of seconds each, answered on A, S, D and F, while the objects keep moving. Candidates call it the ball game.

The FAA does not publish how the simulation is scored. The consistent advice from candidates who reached the top bands is to treat the arithmetic as something you do when the field is quiet: clear the conflicts, press 0 if the field is clean, then answer. On the large calculations, estimate. The options run in ascending order and the large ones are spread widely enough that rounding both numbers finds the right one.

5. Logic word problems: every item needs an answer

About fifteen five-option problems in twenty minutes, answered with the mouse: seating orders, schedules, rules about who may do what, and small tables to count through. The instructions are reported to warn that you are penalised for not answering every question, so in the last minute, pick an option for every item you have not reached.

The commonest trap is reading a permission as a requirement. If the rules say someone may fly business class, nothing forces them to. The right option is the one the rules force, not the one that sounds likely. Candidates also report no pen and paper, so keep the structures you hold in your head small, and read the question before the scenario.

6. Reading comprehension: answer from the passage

About six short passages with three questions each in fifteen minutes, which is under a minute a question including the reading. The questions ask for the main point, a stated detail, what follows from the passage, and what the author says is still unresolved. The wrong options tend to be true in the world, true of a different part of the passage, or stronger than the passage says. Pick the one the passage supports.

7. The work style questionnaire: consistency is the only advice that holds

The last section is about 108 blocks of three statements, two blocks to a screen. In each you choose the statement most like you and the one least like you, and every statement is written to look good. The FAA does not say what it measures or how much it counts, but it passed the same validation as the other six, so assume it matters. Candidates trade theories about answering as an ideal controller. Nobody outside the FAA knows the key, and forced choice is built so that faking a profile is hard. Answer as you are at work, on first instinct, and keep going at a steady pace: it comes after more than two hours of testing.

Why Qualified is not enough

You never see a number. You are placed in a band. When the bands were introduced in 2018, the cut points were 90, 85 and 70 percent of a composite whose weights are not published, and the FAA has since hired only from the top bands. The Inspector General’s figures for 2018 to 2020 put 3,073 candidates in the two selectable bands out of 16,988 eligible to test, roughly one in five or six. The 2026 announcement said only Best or Well-Qualified results would be considered. A Qualified result is a pass that does not get you hired, and since nobody knows the weights, there is no section you can afford to give away.

Practising the sections

Our FAA ATSA practice runs all seven sections with the mechanics above, the keys of the Pearson-era test and an on-screen keypad for phones, and its feedback names which of the traps cost you marks. If you have heard that the ATSA can be gamed, the ATSA cheating guide explains why a test built from two-second windows at a supervised centre leaves nothing to copy.