Definition
A collection of reviewed, pre-written test questions, organized by topic and learning objective, from which an instructor selects items to build a specific test.
Plain English
A stored library of ready-to-use test questions that an instructor can pull from when putting a test together.
Context Anchor
Used by aviation instructors when planning training, checking student progress, and building fair evaluations from course material.
Derivation
Bank here means a stored reserve to draw from, the same sense used in 'blood bank' or 'memory bank.' The word came from Old Italian banca, a money-changer's bench, and over time came to mean any held supply. A test item bank is simply a held supply of test items.
Why Pilots Care
Knowing how test banks work helps a student understand why two pilots taking the 'same' written exam may see different questions, and why test prep that drills only one set of questions can leave gaps.
Analogy
It is like a recipe box for test questions: the instructor keeps many prepared questions in one place and chooses the ones that fit the lesson being checked.
Intuition Check
Do not read “bank” as a financial place here. A test item bank is a stored collection of test questions, not a score record or a money-related term.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor pulled twenty questions from the test item bank to build a quiz on weather theory.
Example Sentence 2
Maintaining a test item bank helps ensure every student is tested on the same key material.