What the test is
The formatA numbered index of 15 tabs down the right and a dual-pane display area on the left, so two tabs are readable at once. Opening a third closes the oldest automatically. Each tab holds one category of data about a system, and roughly 30 multiple-choice questions require you to locate values across several tabs and calculate from them. No single tab answers a question. The whole thing runs in 20 to 25 minutes.
Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides
(rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides
(airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).
Skill area: Logic and 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 Single account✕ Outdated?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
You get tabs describing a system, mixing figures and text, things like how much oil something burns or how much power it puts out. Then questions that make you find and use the right figure.
It’s a search and apply task, not a memory task. Nobody expects you to have learned the content.
! Single accountFormat
Use the reading time twice. Once properly for the content, then a quick second skim just to fix which tab holds which kind of information.
Under time pressure the bottleneck is finding the right tab, not doing the arithmetic. Knowing where everything lives beats knowing the numbers.
✓ Well establishedStrategy
Practise it on SkyWatch
Our SLT game gives you tabs of system information with only two readable at once, and questions that need values from more than one tab.
There is an Easier board, so you can learn where things live before you race the clock.
200+
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.