Knowledge and practical tests follow the FAA Airman Certification Standards

Written knowledge tests and practical tests are not “whatever your CFI remembers from 2012.” The FAA publishes the current Airman Certification Standards and supporting testing material.

The Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix version dated October 22, 2025 superseded the January 27, 2025 matrix. That is a real, dated FAA document — one of the few national items we can timestamp without inventing news.

What to do with this

• Download the ACS for the certificate you want (private, instrument, commercial, CFI)
• Confirm test codes and authorization rules on the current matrix before you pay a testing center
• Ask a school how they map lessons to ACS tasks — that is a useful sales question that does not require fleet tables

This is an editorial sample that cites FAA testing pages. Re-check those URLs; the FAA supersedes documents.