What the test is
The formatSpeed, distance and time problems built around a route map. A left-hand menu holds the data charts, the map shows the route between named checkpoints, and a solving table sits underneath. You read speed off a bar chart against package weight, take distances from the map, and work time as distance ÷ speed, about one minute per question including reading time. Bad weather between checkpoints adjusts your speed by a percentage rather than the distance, and partial credit is given for close answers, so rounding pays.
Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides
(rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides
(airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).
Skill area: Numbers and tables.
What candidates say
These points come from people who have sat the test, gathered from forums, community chats and candidates who wrote to us afterwards. Nothing here is quoted or attributed. Each point is graded by how many separate accounts back it up.
✓ Well established! Single account✕ Outdated? From the published guides
The numbers in the real ANT are round and friendly.
Everyone who’s sat the test agrees on this. If your practice sums feel tougher, you’ll turn up over-trained on the arithmetic, which is exactly where you want to be.
The real questions carry far more variety and more steps though: storms and weather, two aircraft at once, fuel calculations, and traps in the wording.
A classic trap is a question phrased as "Alpha to Bravo is 67 miles" when the table says 43 miles remaining. The maths isn’t what fails people here. Misreading the question is. Read the last line of the objective box first, because that tells you what’s actually being asked.
Two aircraft turn up later in the test, usually called Pluto and Jupiter, with different speeds and a separate chart each.
Typical question: one leaves point A with no package at 15:30, so what time does the other have to leave point B carrying 500kg for both to reach point C together? Check you’re reading the right aircraft’s chart. Careless errors cluster here.
You get a full minute per question, plus reading time at the start.
So you’re not in a race here. Use the minute.
Speed is in miles per minute and depends on package weight. Fuel consumption is given per distance and depends on speed.
So a fuel question is one extra lookup, not one extra calculation. Weight gives you speed, speed gives you consumption, then you work it exactly like a time question. Knowing that beforehand takes most of the sting out of it.
Get to comfortable full marks on speed, distance and time practice, on SkyWatch or a similar tool, before test day.
Two people who passed landed on the same target independently. The score isn’t really the point. Once the arithmetic is automatic you’ve got spare capacity for the wording, and the wording is what catches people.
You get three tabs: a short intro telling you to round and estimate, a speed against load chart, and a speed against fuel consumption chart. Plain bar charts, whole numbers.
One detailed first-hand description, and it fits everything else I’ve seen. Only one person described the tab layout though, so hold the specifics loosely.
Speed and fuel consumption values look to be single-digit whole numbers, and no single question asks for both a time and a fuel figure.
Both from one account, and hedged when it was given. Handy if you’re writing your own practice questions. Not something to lean on.
One question gives you a tailwind and makes you faster. The other wind questions slow you down. Your speed is always stated, and if it isn’t, assume the maximum for the parcel weight.
Read any weather question twice, because the effect flips direction.
Bad weather is flagged by a thunderstorm icon on the leg, and the reduced speed is given to you in the table rather than left for you to work out.
So a storm question is a lookup, not a calculation, so go and find the new figure instead of trying to apply a penalty yourself. One candidate wasn’t certain the slower speed was stated every single time, so if you genuinely can’t find it, fall back on the stated maximum for the weight and move on rather than burning the minute hunting.
Some questions ask for half the journey rather than all of it: time to the halfway point, or from it.
Easy marks and an easy trap in equal measure. The method doesn’t change at all, you just halve the distance before you start. It catches people because it’s a single word in the wording, which is exactly the kind of thing you skim past when you’re working at pace.
The weight column steps in round hundreds (100kg, 200kg, 300kg and so on) but the weight in the question can be an untidy number like 220kg.
You are meant to round to the nearest row and read the speed off it. There is no interpolating and no exact answer waiting to be found, which is worth knowing in advance because the instinct on seeing 220 is to assume you’ve misread the chart.
Press enter to commit your answer. The minute runs out whether or not you’ve submitted, and an answer you worked out but never entered scores nothing.
One candidate lost a question exactly this way. It sounds trivial and it is, right up until you spend fifty seconds getting a hard one right and then don’t bank it. Get into the habit of entering a rough figure early and correcting it, rather than typing only once you’re sure.
The route maps get bigger as the test goes on, with more checkpoints and more possible routes, but the route you’re supposed to take is always spelled out.
So a busier map isn’t a harder navigation problem, it just looks like one. Read off the route you’ve been given and ignore the rest of the picture.
You can backspace while typing an answer in the real test. Some practice apps won’t let you.
Small thing, but it removes a bit of panic that your practice may have trained into you.
Rounding is safe. Answers a couple of minutes off the exact figure still mark as correct.
Widely repeated, but I’ve never seen anyone quote the official tolerance. Round with confidence, just don’t get sloppy on the assumption that the margin is huge.
Some of the speed-distance-time practice tools floating around online are far harder than the real test.
Fine for overtraining, useless for judging where you are. If one of them is wrecking your confidence, that’s the tool, not you.
The practice tools disagree about which way round the speed chart runs. Some show a heavier package flying slower, at least one published chart shows the opposite.
The first-hand accounts point at heavier being slower. One describes 7 miles a minute as the speed carrying a 200kg package, dropping as the load goes up. It matters less than it looks, because you read the number off the chart in front of you on the day rather than recalling it. What you should not do is drill until the relationship feels automatic, then meet a chart that runs the other way.
The real test gives partial credit for close answers, so being a few minutes out is not a zero.
Some practice apps only accept exact answers, and a run of zeroes on one can rattle you when your method is basically sound. Judge yourself on whether you got there inside the minute with a sensible estimate, not on whether an app lit up green.
Expect wordy questions with several factors at once: weather, fuel running low, and the two-aircraft stage at the end.
The numbers themselves stay friendly. It’s the reading that grows, which is one more reason to get the arithmetic automatic before the day.
ANT is the test most often named by candidates who did well everywhere else and still missed a role by a single domain.
If your arithmetic is shaky, this is the best place to spend extra practice time, because the rest of the day can’t make up for it.
Practise it on SkyWatch
Our ANT game gives you route maps, charts and questions to work through in your head, with an Easier board and a Hard board.
The practise mode breaks every question down step by step, so you can see exactly where a wrong answer went wrong. You can play it without an account.
1,800+
practice runs played
on SkyWatch
on SkyWatch
82%
of players who practised 10+ times
improved on their first runs
improved on their first runs
Every SkyWatch game is our own CBAT-style practice version, built from what candidates report. None of them is the real test.
Related tests
- Numerical Operations Testthe quick arithmetic test
- Table Reading Test (MATF)the grid and table lookups
Read more
This page is one part of the complete CBAT guide, which also covers how the day runs, the pass marks and the domain minimums. Or see every CBAT test on one page.