How the IR(R) theory exam works: format, pass mark and what to expect

Before the IR(R) flight test comes a written theory exam. It is not one of the big ATPL-style exam suites — it is a single paper, sat at your training organisation — but it covers a genuinely broad syllabus, and candidates who treat it casually tend to find that out the hard way.

The format

The essentials are straightforward:

• 25 multiple-choice questions, each with four options.
• A pass mark of 75% — so you can afford very few mistakes.
• Sat under exam conditions at your ATO/DTO, which also sets the time allowance — check the current details when you book.
• Questions are drawn from across the whole syllabus: meteorology, air law and procedures, navigation and flight planning, human factors, instrument procedures, and the UK flight information services.

The chart and flight-plan questions

A distinctive feature of the paper is a planning exercise. You are typically given a route and a partially completed flight plan as an appendix, and asked to work with a current UK aeronautical chart — measuring tracks and distances, calculating headings and groundspeeds with the forecast wind, and determining safe altitudes.

Several questions then hang off that plan, so an early arithmetic slip can cost more than one mark. Bring the equipment you would use for real planning — current chart, plotter, and flight computer — and practise the mechanical skills until they are quick and reliable. This is the part of the exam you cannot cram the night before.

Where candidates lose marks

Examiners and instructors see the same patterns repeatedly:

• UK Flight Information Services — the precise differences between Basic, Traffic, Deconfliction and Procedural Services are tested often and confused often.
• Altimetry — QNH, QFE, the Regional Pressure Setting and transition altitudes, especially applied to a specific scenario.
• Instrument indications — CDI and ADF interpretation questions where the picture must be turned into a position and a correction.
• The planning exercise — rushed measurement or a mis-set wind side of the flight computer.

How to prepare

Work through a large bank of exam-style questions until the recall is automatic, then sit full 25-question mock papers under exam conditions and hold yourself to better than the 75% pass mark — consistently, not once. Review every wrong answer until you understand why the right one is right; the explanation matters more than the score.

That is exactly the workflow IR(R) Revision is built around: the whole bank with explanations, per-section drilling for weak areas, and unlimited timed mocks marked against the real pass mark.