[PPRAANet] Study suggestions for extra exam

[Greg Beeley]

Tim,

I'm a new Extra, so not an "expert" really, but I just recently went 
through what you're doing. :)  My suggestion is to go through the 
subelements (E0 through E9) _one subelement at a time_ in "study" mode 
on hamstudy.org.  That helps in learning concepts rather than just 
memorizing answers, and it avoids the incomplete coverage problem of 
just taking practice tests.  There is a little drop-down list to select 
which of the ten subelements to study.  If you don't know the answer to 
a question, click the "I don't know" option; that way the tool remembers 
that you didn't get that one (instead of happenstance getting it right), 
and it will ask you that question a couplefew more times for practice.  
Sign up for a hamstudy account so it remembers what you've learned.

I already had a foundation for learning the exam content, which helped; 
my approach was to put in some time to read up on each new concept that 
came up in the study process, since I do much better learning by concept 
than by rote. I found some helpful Youtube videos on how to actually use 
a Smith chart.  Wikipedia helped for studying various kinds of antennas 
and concepts like ALE, FT4, PACTOR, OFDM, impedance matching techniques, 
etc.  For a couple items I referred to the FCC regs directly.  I had to 
think through how to remember some things, like how to determine Q for a 
series vs parallel RLC resonant circuit (thinking about the "edge cases" 
where R is either 0 or infinite helps in remembering which way the ratio 
works in each case, and this approach can help with remembering other 
formulae too).  A few things have to be rote memorized, but thankfully 
most things can be handled on a concept basis, esp. since this is a 
multiple-choice test.

Have fun!

73,

- Greg AK6B


Tim Powell via PPRAANet wrote on 5/27/22 14:07:
> I need some advice from you "experts"..  I am studying for the extra exam using "Ham Study" which I find very helpful.  But, in going thru several exams so far, I seem to see many of the same questions over and over.  So far I miss only a few each time, so I am hoping this pool of questions represents the actual pool I should expect at the exam.  I was wondering if any of you could suggest what you found as the best question study pool that you found most helpful in preparing for the extra exam.  Any other sites (ARRL etc) that you found better at preparing for the exam?
> Thanks,
> Tim Powell  WB6GTV
> 719-322-3930 Cell
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