Part-66 Module 1: Mathematics

Three subjects, divided into six topics, and the division rewards a close read because the knowledge levels aren’t spread evenly across it. Arithmetic comes first and comes at level 2: arithmetical terms and signs, methods of multiplication and division, fractions and decimals, factors and multiples, weights, measures and conversion factors, ratio and proportion, averages and percentages, and areas and volumes. That’s a long list for one topic. It’s also the one place in the module where you’re expected to work things out rather than just recognise them.

Algebra splits in two, and the split matters more than the subject does. Evaluating simple algebraic expressions sits at level 2, so you have to be able to do it: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, brackets, and simple algebraic fractions. Everything harder sits at level 1: linear equations and their solutions, indices and powers, negative and fractional indices, binary and other applicable numbering systems, simultaneous equations, second degree equations with one unknown, and logarithms. Level 1 wants familiarity and the typical terms, never working fluency, so read that distinction correctly and you win back hours you’d otherwise spend grinding through quadratics.

Geometry then takes three topics of its own. Simple geometrical constructions sit at level 1, while graphical representation sits at level 2, meaning the nature and uses of graphs, and graphs of equations and functions, which is the part of this module that most clearly earns its place, because you’ll read curves off charts for the rest of your working life. Simple trigonometry also sits at level 2, covering the relationships, the use of tables, and rectangular and polar coordinates, and it’s there because forces have directions and Module 2 is about to start splitting them into components.

You get 32 questions and 40 minutes, all multiple choice, and the clock is arithmetic rather than judgement: Appendix II allows a standard 75 seconds a question across every module in the set, so the time here follows the count and says nothing about how hard anyone thinks the questions are. What the count does tell you is how little room a subject has to hide, because the whole module is six topics, so arithmetic, algebra and geometry will each come up, whatever your school history with them happened to be.

At the 75% pass mark, that means 24 correct answers with 8 spare, so think about where that spare margin goes before you sit down. Almost every question in Module 1 is worked rather than remembered, so the answers you get wrong will mostly be to questions you knew perfectly well how to do: a sign carried across, a decimal shifted one place, a bracket expanded in the wrong order. The margin is there to absorb the working you did too quickly, and that’s a different thing to prepare for than ignorance.

Every maths paper attracts the calculator question, and Part-66 never answers it: Appendix II sets the format, the timing and the pass mark, and says nothing at all about calculators or reference material. The closed book line that gets quoted at people belongs to Appendix III, which governs type training rather than the basic modules. In practice it’s settled by whoever runs your exam, which is a Part-147 approved organisation or the competent authority, so ask them.

The table below is one of the quiet ones in this set: six rows, and the two level columns never part company, since our reading of the assimilated text is that the UK asks for the same depth EASA does in every one of them. The wording is the thing to stop on instead, because three of those titles are written differently, and each time the UK CAA’s version is the longer and more specific one, which makes it the better revision list of the two even if you’re sitting the EASA paper.

Not in any way that changes what you have to learn. Elsewhere in the licence there are papers that genuinely part company, and Module 1 shows none of the signs: neither side has a topic the other is missing, every code points at the same subject in both texts, neither authority asks for more depth than the other, neither attaches an essay, and neither hangs a letter on the module number. Both set 32 questions in 40 minutes over the same six topics in the same order, and by our reading of the assimilated text the UK asks each at the depth EASA does, which puts this paper among the nine the two authorities set alike rather than the four they set apart.

The only difference is in how three of the titles are written, and it always runs the same way: the UK text says more. Its topic 1.2(b) names linear equations, indices and powers, numbering systems, simultaneous and second degree equations, and logarithms where the EASA text says only “equations”. Its 1.2(a) says “evaluating simple algebraic expressions” where EASA says “simple algebraic expressions”, and its 1.3(c) says “simple trigonometry” where EASA says “trigonometry”.

None of that changes what you can be examined on: the EASA table carries fuller descriptors underneath each heading in the regulation itself, and they say the same things. What the UK has done is lift some of that detail up into the title, so all it means in practice is that the UK list is easier to revise from, and nothing stops an EASA candidate using it.

The wider split between the two authorities is on the EASA versus UK CAA page: mutual recognition, which licence to go for, and what happened to the conversion route.

This page covers one of the 13 papers. The rest of the guide covers the route they sit inside: what the exam is, what else you must have done besides passing it, and how the two authorities differ.

Both authorities require the same thirteen subjects. Only the numbering and some of the titles differ, and the UK still uses the A suffix on four of them where EASA has dropped it. Each has a page of its own.