What the test is
The formatA passage of text and four numbered answers, with no diagram to work on. Two question types: static relationships, where you chain fixed positions between landmarks, sum the offsets along one axis and read the direction off the sign of the net value; and journeys, where you follow a sequence of turns and distances and give the direction or distance back to the start. Everything is mental: the day allows no pen or paper.
Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides
(rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides
(airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).
Skill area: Spatial reasoning.
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 Single account✕ Outdated?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
For "how far from the start" questions, split each leg into north/south and east/west components, then put them back together with Pythagoras.
Add up all the northward distance and take off the southward. Same again for east and west. Your straight line distance is then the square root of the two squares added together. There’s no shortcut beyond estimating, and people who tried to picture it with their fingers did noticeably worse than the ones who just did the sums.
✓ Well establishedMethod
It’s multiple choice, so round hard. Snap to the nearest square number instead of working out a precise root.
If your components give you something like 340,000, spotting that it sits closer to 600² than 500² is all the precision you need. Knowing your squares up to about 900 without thinking makes this test far easier.
✓ Well establishedTechnique
Map the chain backwards, from the last point named.
Placing "D is 20km north of E" is much easier once you already know where E is. It takes most of the confusion out of the chains, and one bloke said it improved his prep straight away.
! Single accountTechnique
Questions use plain directions and distances. No compass bearings.
So you shouldn’t get anything like "200 miles at 100°". One person who sat it said this, and nobody has contradicted it.
! Single accountFormat
Don’t use a chatbot to check your DAD answers.
People who tried got different answers on re-asking, and it agreed with whatever they claimed was right. Work them by hand, or check against a worked example you already trust.
! Single accountWarning
Practise it on SkyWatch
Our Directions and Distances game gives you journeys in plain text and asks where the object ended up, with no map while you solve.
Once you answer, the route is drawn out so you can see where your picture went wrong.
300+
practice runs played
on SkyWatch
Every SkyWatch game is our own CBAT-style practice version, built from what candidates report. None of them is the real test.