I wrote this email back in november, 2002.
Dear Marie,
As you are aware I failed the Mechanical Aptitude test at Skywest. It is now a 20 question test. One of the guys going through the interview with me was a former Skywest pilot and currently a furloughed United pilot. As he knows all the key people, he mentioned after we had all taken the tests, that this was the first time for the new 20 question test. I know another individual who interviewed a month ago and his was a 10 question test. I'm estimating that there were only 3-5 questions on this test that were the same as the material you provided me. Another guy I talked to said there is a military mechanical engineering prep book. I passed the ATP written test. Following are as many questions as I can remember:
You have a round gear with 30 teeth spinning at 30RPM connected to a worm gear that turns 6 teeth per inch. How much will the worm gear advance if the round gear turns for 2 seconds?
There was a 3D picture of blocks looking from the front top. Two sides had 3x3 blocks. The back was 3x5. Some of the top blocks had been removed. The question was how many blocks were there.
There was a similar question only this one asked how many blocks did block B touch. The picture resembled more of long 1"x6"x24" wood blocks. Some went length wise, some were stacked across.
There was a picture of 3 balloons, (small, medium, large). The test stated that all 3 balloons had equal amount of helium in them. The question was which balloon had the most atmospheric pressure pushing in on them. Outside air pushing in.
The was a depiction of a river. It narrowed and then widen. At its narrowest point a dam was to be built. There were 4 options, a straight line, a triangle pointing upriver, a triangle pointing downriver, and a semicircle I believe pointing upriver.
There were 4 pictures of cannon guns. One pointed straight up, one pointed horizontal, one was at a 45' angle and one was at a 30' angle. The question was which cannon would shoot the farthest in undisturbed air.
There was the truck picture (# 3) pulling the weight straight up. There were 3 pulleys total.
There was a pulley question similar to something you guys had but asked a very different question. There was one pulley. The question asked how much force would need to be exerted move the 100lb weight.
There were several questions of the multiple gears connected to each other and which way were certain gears turning. In each case the pictures of gears were completely different than anything I had seen before.
There was a question that stated a KingAir took off 2 hours before a LearJet. The KingAir was traveling at 225 knots. The LearJet flew at 450 knots. How long before the Lear overtook the KingAir. They were traveling along the same route.
There was the question of the big wheel connected to the little. Your number 6.
Your number 1, the lever and fulcrum was on there.
That's all I can remember. None of them seemed all that hard. If I had some sort of prep book that covered this material I'm sure it would have been easy to pass. They told me I barely missed. You had to pass with 70%. I must have missed 7 questions