
                    C A T sys.  (1.2vs)

CAT System (Computer Aided Teaching System) with the data
supplied is for use in preparation for FAA (Federal Aviation
Administration) aviation mechanic written examinations which
lead toward receiving the FAA Powerplant or Airframe Mechanic
licenses.

Contact your nearest FAA district office to find out if you
meet the requirements to be able to take the FAA mechanic
written exams. They are usually located at major airports.

PLEASE check before going through a lot of study just to find
out that you don't qualify to take the tests. You must have
an Airman's Authorization for Written Test Form for each test
(General, Airframe, and Powerplant). The General test is
needed in combination with either or both of the other two
for a single or dual license as well as passing oral and
practical exams after the written.

18-30 months work experience (military or civilian) in the
right areas or an aviation school is required to take the
licensing tests. I was an Air Force C-130 mechanic (43151F)
which qualified me to take all the tests.

The FAA does not publish the correct answers, keep this in
mind, as mine are surely not all correct. Nobody knows for
sure as some questions are worded poorly and answers may be
partially correct, you have to find the "most correct"
answer of the four choices. The FAA Powerplant test is in
two sections. Questions 5001-5252 from which they choose 25
questions and the rest from which they choose 75 questions
for a total of 100. You must get at least a 70 on each
section to pass.

The file "pp.qst" contains the questions from the FAA
"Aviation Mechanic Powerplant Question Book" FAA-T-8080-11B.

The main reference material for the Powerplant questions is
in the "Airframe & Powerplant Mechanics Powerplant Handbook"
AC65-12A.

They are for sale by:

Superintendent of Documents
U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C.  20402

They have bookstores in major cities and reprints of these
books are available from other commercial sources.

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS:

The program requires a CGA (Color Graphics Adapter),  37   3                     
Monochrome adapter, or emulation, one disk drive, and at
least 256K of memory.

With your display in a 80 by 25 mode run "cat.exe" it
requires the files "pp.qst" and "pp.idx" be on the same disk
or in the same directory.

"H" Displays help screen. "PgDn" for same information as in
"category.txt" file. Any key to go on, except "Esc" since it
would quit the program.

"Esc" To quit. Works from anywhere in program. From a data
entry mode "Esc" will bring you back to the ">" prompt from
where it will quit the program. Be careful to always end this
way as files need to be closed properly.

", ." Scan backwards or forwards. The "space bar" also works
to scan ahead.

"< >" scan backwards or forwards by 10.

"N" Jumps ahead to the next category. The questions are
roughly placed in categories (reciprocating, turbine,
instruments, electrical, etc.). The category you are in is
displayed as a number on the status line. Print the
"category.txt" file to your printer to have a record of it.
From DOS enter "copy category.txt prn" to get a printout.

"B" backs up to the last category.

"J" Jumps to a particular question number, leave off
thousands.
     ex. 5467 would be 467.

"R" Toggles between going on to the next question if you
answer incorrectly or repeating that question until correct.
If you turn the repeating feature on, keep in mind your score
will be inaccurate. It is a good feature, however, to
reinforce yourself when you finally make the correct choice.
When you are actually testing yourself the repeat feature
should be off which is the default. "REPEAT" appears in the
top right hand portion of the screen to indicate repeating is
on. Press "R" again to turn repeating off.

"S" Makes bottom score line disappear, Press "S" again to
return it. Your score is being kept anyway.

"^S" Clears score.

"^I" or Tab to modify a questions index record. The score
line must be on or the command is ignored. You can change the
answer, figure, category, similar question and reference
fields. DANGER do not edit the category field, this feature
is for future versions. The word "MODIFY" will appear in the
top right hand side of the screen. Press "Enter" or "Esc" to  3n   3                     
skip fields you don't wish to change or to move to the next
field after making a change. Use the backspace key to make
corrections, the cursor will jump to the next field as the
last allowable character is entered. Don't worry you haven't
changed anything permanently yet, you have only changed the
index file in memory. If you quit now CAT will fire up with
the original settings. Your speaker will beep if you attempt
to enter illegal characters. Zero's entered in the figure,
category, and the similar question fields are a null value
and the score line will show a "-" in a zero's place.

The Similar Question field has the current question number in
it, in future versions this will be used to track similar
questions, eliminate redundancy in tests etc. There are
hundreds of nearly identical questions in the FAA's sample
questions from which the actual test is constructed. Keep this
in mind in your studies as a similar question will often tip
you off to the correct answer and one of them is more likely
to be on the test.

     ex. 5242-5346, 5299-5305, 5265-5292, 5299-5305.

"^W" Write changes above to disk. The file "pp.idx" is over-
written so have a backup of the original. Answer "N", "Esc"
or "Enter" at the prompt to abort.

"PgUp/Any key" Allows you to view a question too large for
the screen. A "*" character helps you find your place as the
screen scrolls when you press page down. Press page up to see
the top again. Try question number 5226. The only other
command that functions here is "Esc" to quit.

"Z" - "z" Toggles the border on and off to the background
color. This is not a supported feature, it is harmless
though.

Use DOS's print screen function "PrtSc" to get a text dump of
questions that require further study or to make a record of
your score.

If you have over 512K of memory and are running off a floppy
you might like to set up a ram-disk for faster operation.
Copy the files "cat.exe", "pp.qst", and "pp.idx" into it.
Make the ram-disk  your default drive and run CAT.

CHANGING STARTUP CONDITIONS:

Must enter all eight parameters or none. The parameters are
separated by a space. Making a batch file is the way to go.
If an error is encountered CAT tries to make the paramameter
the default.

1 - The question file name with no extension it assumes the
    extension is ".qst" ("pp" default).
2 - The starting question number (1 default);  3   3                     
3 - The background color, 0-7, (Blue default).
4 - The forground color, 0-15, (LightGray default).
5 - Detail color, 0-15, (Cyan default).
6 - F would write to BIOS rather than directly writing to
    video memory. If you have display problems try F,
    otherwise always use T. (T is the default and writes
    directly to video memory).
7 - F turns off snow checking. Use F with monochrome or newer
    CGA's for faster screen display. (T is the default snow
    checking on).
8 - The speed at which the explanation is printed after an
    incorrect response use 0 to 50 (25 default).

ex. "CAT pp 1 1 7 3 T T 25"  (This is the default setup).

Colors:
0 = Black           8 = DarkGray
1 = Blue            9 = LightBlue
2 = Green           10 = LightGreen
3 = Cyan            11 = LightCyan
4 = Red             12 = LightRed
5 = Magenta         13 = LightMagenta
6 = Brown           14 = Yellow
7 = LightGray       15 = White

"-" Increments by 1 your current foreground color 0-15. Use this
    feature only to find which color best suits. Then put this
    number in a batch file.

"*" Same as above but increments the background colors 0-7.

If you find this program useful please pay for it.
$15 per module. There is a General module also available from me.
No Airframe module ready at this time.
Please include SASE with correspondence.

Your input is always welcome.

CAT sys. (1.2vs) Copyright 1990 all rights reserved.
Written by Mike Schwartz, RD 7232, Reading, PA 19606.

GOOD LUCK!!
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