C A T sys. (1.1vs) 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 don't go 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 writtens. 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. PLEASE PAY ME: *If you find this program of use please pay for it. There are only two other vendors that sell such packages and they charge $100 to $150 for them. Registration Fee $15, or $45 for all three modules. If you would like to be notified of future versions only and don't wish to register please send self addressed stamped envelope. What you get for $15: Latest version of CAT and your name will put on my mailing list for future updates. What you get for $45: You will be sent all three modules General, Airframe, and Powerplant, plus latest version of CAT. Future updates will be made available at a reasonable cost to registered users. With your help I plan on making CAT the best in the field. The question files in document format WordPerfect(TM) are available if you wish to edit them to suit your needs plus a program to rebuild the index files so CAT can access your modified files. CAT is general enough that it could be used to create your own computer aided instruction application. Add $10 to complete price. MAILING ADDRESS: Building Bloc Systems RD 7232 Reading, PA 19606 OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS: The program requires a CGA, Monochrome, or Hercules(TM) type graphic adapter or emulation, one disk drive, and at least 256K of memory. With your display in a 80 column 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 above. 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. Shift ", ." or "< >" 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. Use "backspace" to correct, "Esc" or "Enter" with no number present to abort. 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" Modify a questions index record. The score line must be on or "^I" 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. After you press "^I" the word "MODIFY" will appear in the top right hand side of the screen. Press "Enter" or "Esc" to 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 reduncancy in tests etc. There are hundreds of nearly identical questions in the FAA's sample questions from which the actual test is contructed. 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. 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 - 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 PLANNED IMPROVEMENTS: 1. Private Pilot module. 2. Better references. 3. Access a file which displays an explanation of the correct answer when you answer incorrectly, not just the answer alone. 4. Fill in the blank text which you read and fill in key words omitted prior to answering questions. 5. User to be able to make sorted tests, saved to disk, based on category, reference, or randomly generated. 6. Print tests to line printer. Your suggestions are welcome. CAT sys. (1.1vs) Copyright April 1989 all rights reserved. Written by Mike Schwartz. GOOD LUCK!!