How the ANIT works
The ANIT is one of the six parts of the full ASTB-E, which aviation applicants take. It is not one of the three tests behind the OAR, so you only sit it if you take the whole battery.
It tests what you know rather than how you reason: aviation history, nautical terminology and procedures, the parts of an aircraft and what they do, basic aerodynamics, and flight rules and regulations. The Navy calls it the part most easily improved by study, and candidates with flying or shipboard experience usually do well on it.
Like the other ability parts it is adaptive, with no going back and a penalty for questions left unreached when time runs out.
What to study for the ANIT
Cover the six areas in order of how quickly they pay off:
- Ship terms: bow, stern, port, starboard, fore, aft, the bridge, the galley, the head, and the meaning of the main deck and the waterline.
- Aircraft parts: wings, fuselage, empennage, ailerons (roll), elevator (pitch), rudder (yaw), flaps, trim tabs, and the main instruments.
- Aerodynamics: the four forces (lift, weight, thrust, drag), angle of attack, stall, and how flaps change lift.
- Flight rules: right-of-way, visual and instrument flight rules, airspace classes and runway numbering, from the FAA’s pilot handbooks.
- Navigation: headings, the compass rose, latitude and longitude, knots and nautical miles, and ships’ navigation lights.
- Naval aviation history: the milestones of carrier aviation and the aircraft and battles every naval aviator learns about.
Example questions
“The control surface that moves an aircraft’s nose up and down is the: (A) aileron (B) elevator (C) rudder (D) flap.” The answer is B. Ailerons roll the aircraft, the rudder yaws it, and flaps add lift and drag at low speed.
“A ship’s red navigation light is shown on its: (A) port side (B) starboard side (C) stern (D) masthead.” The answer is A: red is port, green is starboard, and the stern light is white.
Tips for the real ANIT
- You either know it or you do not. Answer, move on, and keep your time for the questions you can work out.
- Study from the sources the Navy suggests: FAA and civilian aviation books, encyclopaedias, and handbooks on basic piloting, navigation and seamanship.
- Learn terms in pairs and sets (port and starboard, the three axes and their control surfaces) so one fact recalls the next.
- Fit the study in early. Of all the ASTB-E parts, this is the one where a few weeks of reading moves your score most.
Practise the ANIT on CogniPrep
Our ANIT gives you up to 30 adaptive questions in 15 minutes, the limits of the fixed form used before 2013, from a bank of 240 questions spread evenly over aviation history, nautical terms, aircraft components, aerodynamics, flight rules and navigation. Every question is checked against a published reference, most often the FAA’s pilot handbooks. It never lets you go back and takes points off if time runs out with questions unreached. Your result is our estimate on a 20 to 80 scale, with the areas you missed listed so you know what to read next.