Hey guys I start at yyz ifr March 18, and am on Block9 of the ITA prep.

Doea anyone know which acronyms we need to memorize for airports, airlines, and aircraft?

There are a ton and I wonder if I can narrow them down instead of even small towns in Canada.

Remember literally everything. All of it is testable.

I was wondering the same thing, as I’m also on Block 9. Lots to memorize on this block.

Use Quizlet to help. You can even find flashcards others made online but use those with a grain of salt. Try to find associations and anything you can use as memory aids.

Airlines and destination are especially important for IFR, much more so than VFR. Once you hit your specialty, you'll have even more to learn on top of this list.

Haha well I guess it's memory time. This is by far the slowest block so far. With 5 weeks until the IFR start at YYZ, I think I'm at a good place right now. Hopefully have them memorized by Sunday.

It's the smaller Canadian airports and the aircraft types that are hard to me

This mind sound a tad rude but if you aren't willing to memorize a few airport and airline identifiers on the ITA you'll be in for a surprise during your training. Also, i'm not sure asking if you need to learn something or not during your course is a good idea. Good luck!

Braun wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:26 am This mind sound a tad rude but if you aren't willing to memorize a few airport and airline identifiers on the ITA you'll be in for a surprise during your training. Also, i'm not sure asking if you need to learn something or not during your course is a good idea. Good luck!

LOL, I was contemplating the same sort of reply. One thing for all the controllers in waiting to keep in mind is that the ITA is the easy part of the training. Do not under estimate the massive amounts of info that you will be required to memorize. There is a method to the madness though. The sooner you don't have to think about call signs and airports and frequencies and rules and procedures and all the other minutia, the easier you will find dealing with the bigger problems like "seeing" the traffic and "seeing" solutions. Good luck to all.

Slenderjim wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:40 am Hey guys I start at yyz ifr March 18, and am on Block9 of the ITA prep.

Doea anyone know which acronyms we need to memorize for airports, airlines, and aircraft?

There are a ton and I wonder if I can narrow them down instead of even small towns in Canada.

hey man (again haha), im starting the course on the 18th too, so i cant give you any real insight, but i do use Quizlet as someone else suggested. though i do disagree with what someone else suggested saying basically "memorize word for word the entire TCAIM, MATS, MANOPS and the oxford english dictionary before stepping foot in the door" that seems like an unhelpful reply, information overload gets no one anywhere. there are like 350+ designators and i dont think the airport code for Tahiti or the operator code for some small Botswanan airline is going to be on the initial ITA exam.

the test is on the 25th, and the first week is review and such, and if you go to the meet and greet on march 4th you could get some clarification from Tyler regarding where to focus majority of your attention.

in the meantime, i do suggest browsing through Quizlet, or signing up. i have linked this list of 340 abbreviations/identifiers that you could use as a reference for that particular aspect of it all.

https://quizlet.com/_4mp5nx

take care!

Ah haha, after seeing so much about how much there is to memorize, I was expecting thousands or even tens of thousands. Good to see it's "only" 350+. Haha.

hopefulguy wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:30 pm Ah haha, after seeing so much about how much there is to memorize, I was expecting thousands or even tens of thousands. Good to see it's "only" 350+. Haha.

haha well those are just terms/abbreviations, there will obviously still be a boat (plane?)-load of rules, regulations, situations, definitions, scenarios, instructions, etc etc etc on top of that. 2 years of training! haha

Ssauvage87 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:16 pm though i do disagree with what someone else suggested saying basically "memorize word for word the entire TCAIM, MATS, MANOPS and the oxford english dictionary before stepping foot in the door" that seems like an unhelpful reply, information overload gets no one anywhere. there are like 350+ designators and i dont think the airport code for Tahiti or the operator code for some small Botswanan airline is going to be on the initial ITA exam.
take care!

No one here came close to suggesting you need to memorize AIM, MATS or MANOPS. Ever. Calm down. Anyone who has been through training would highly recommended AGAINST that because you WILL mis-interpret some things without the appropriate context.

Everything on the ITA is fair game. Even defunct airlines are in there so don’t be surprised if that’s on the exam. If you want to go memorize the “350+ designator” and code for Tahiti or some Botswanan airline, then all the power to you. If you read through the block, you’d know that they’re not on the ITA and would not help you even the slightest for this test.

Whoa easy on the replies people, you think I would have offended someone with the rudeness....

Relax, all I was asking was a simple question. No need to power trip lol. It was a simple question, and a simple "yes all is fair game" would have sufficed.

I think some of you need to go and let off some steam ha

Who said to memorize AIM, MATS etc all by heart? Anyways like I said: good luck. What do I know, I just do tons of training and get this question all the time. I know how it usually ends when people try and cut corners.

i was being hyberbolic, my quotation marks were obviously sarcastic and exaggerative to say "material on the ITA is fair game for the ITA test" is quite unhelpful is all i was implying, its a 100 hour course, its obviously impossible to have the entire thing memorized for a 200 question test. otherwise the expected passing score would be 100% not 80. and i have/did read through the unit. there are hundreds of designators/abbreviations/identifiers, just in unit 9.

perhaps the OP question shouldnt have been asked in the first place, but i believe the correct answer in my opinion, especially from those who've taken the test shouldve been: study it all, be as familiar as possible with it all, but keep in mind neither the ITA itself nor the ITA test is 100% comprised of designator codes/abbreviations, therefore, learn them with a grain of salt, keeping room for the rest of the course.

we're supposed to be here to help each other, not LOL and finger-point and belittle. be constructive or be silent my mother always said.

First of all I’ve been posting here for over 10 years and I think I’ve been quite helpful to the people with whom I’ve interacted. It’s not my fault people can’t be spoken to anymore with honesty without being sensitive about. It’s not personal.

It seems people forget that you are starting a new career. The things you learn allow you to succeed at your career and become and ATS. Asking if you need to know abbreviations on the ITA for a test is like saying “do I really need to know this?”. Yes, you do. You aren’t a student anymore, you’re an employee.

Someone who completed IFR training at YYZ fairly recently here.

To the OP's question, memorize as much of the material as you can. This should be the common theme throughout your training. Obviously not everything in the ITA can be tested, and not everything you cover in the classroom will be tested, but this does not mean you won't need to know it. 80% may be a pass on a test but with live traffic there are things you need to be 100% correct about 100% of the time. If you have limited time to study the ITA, then my advice is probably quite obvious; memorize the identifiers for the major airports and the most common aircraft first. These are the most likely to show up on the test. However, as others have indicated, it is all fair game. Some obscure locations will be in there. In my case, since the airport identifiers are tested early on, I didn't go back and review them as much as I probably should have. When I got to specialty specific training, not only did I suddenly have to know hundreds of identifiers again but now also had to memorize preferred IFR routings to dozens of them.

To the other direction this thread has been heading, I would respectfully encourage future students to heed the advice of those on this forum who, quite frankly, know more about what you are about to undertake than you do. If you have had an opportunity to read through some other topics in this forum, you would notice that Braun and kevenv in particular have been providing advice to prospective controllers for years. I don't think they come here to berate future employees, and if they seem concerned that a particular question is being asked in a particular way, I think you should consider why. It is true that you will learn a lot in training that you may never need to know. It is also true that when you are training in the school or on the floor, you will need to apply some piece of knowledge and every second you spend trying to remember it will cost you seconds of brainpower that you need for something else. You should know as much as you can and know it cold.

Anyways, to everyone that is about to start training, good luck. Work hard. I can honestly say that training for this job is the hardest thing I have ever done, and it was absolutely worth it.

For what it's worth, I didn't find what Braun said to be disrespectful at all, in fact, I think it is very helpful for future hopefuls like me.