PLT231: Anxiety and Stress
What code PLT231 covers, why the FAA tests it, and how to study Anxiety and Stress before your checkride.
Recall FOI techniques / human behavior - anxiety / fear / stress
What this means for your checkride
Anxiety, fear, and stress affect how students learn and perform. Mild stress can sharpen attention, but high anxiety narrows it and blocks learning. The instructor manages it by building competence and confidence gradually, keeping the student informed, and not overwhelming them.
Emotional state drives learning and safety, so the FAA tests how anxiety and stress affect performance and how an instructor manages them.
Instructors push through a student's fear to toughen them. High anxiety shuts down learning; reducing it with preparation and small successes teaches far more than pressure does.
Where to study it
A code on your test report is an area of deficiency. An authorized instructor must review it with you and endorse that review before you take the practical test, and the examiner may revisit it during the oral. Study it until you can explain it out loud, not just recognize the answer.