ASVAB Study Guide By Peter Shawn White
Table of Contents Introduction Page 3 What Is The ASVAB? Page 4 Preparing For The ASVAB Page 5 Study Tips Page 7 Some Final Words Page 9
Introduction I m going to make this introduction very short and very much to the point. The ASVAB Exam is one of the toughest exams you ll ever take in your life. After all, you re looking to get into the military and they only want the brightest and the best. The tips in this report WORK. How do I know? Because they come directly from the military IF you know where to find them. Problem is, most people don t know where or how to find this stuff. So I ve collected the best advice from the top brass in the military, the guys who have been through this long before you were ever thought of, and have included it here. I have NO doubt that it will help you immensely. So let s get started.
What Is The ASVAB? Okay, so what exactly is the ASVAB? The ASVAB is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. You absolutely CAN T enlist in the military without taking it. I don t care if your father knows the President of the US. There are two primary purposes to the ASVAB. The first one is to see if you have the mental aptitude to enlist in the section of the military that you re interested in. The second purpose is for them to see what you d be best at. It may not matter if you want to be a military mechanic. If you don t know a hammer from a wrench, it s not happening. There are a lot of people who believe that this exam is a waste of time because it doesn t really prove that a person is or isn t military material, that there is more to being a good soldier (if that s what you re looking to become) than just a few book smarts. There may be some truth to that. Hell, there may be a lot of truth to that. Problem is, the military has to have SOME way of weeding out people who probably WON T be soldier material, or even good mechanics. Thus, the ASVAB was created. It isn t perfect, but it s all we have. Bottom line if you want a career in the army, navy, marines, air force or wherever, you re going to have to get past this first hurdle.
Preparing For The ASVAB Let s get right down to the preparation part. I can t even begin to impress upon you the importance of one thing actually 3 things that you MUST do each day. 1. Adopt a positive attitude. I don t care how smart you are or how much you study. Way too many people doom themselves to failure because they go into this with the attitude that it s too hard and that there is no way they can pass. Each day, you must face your studies with a can do attitude. Otherwise, everything that comes after it will be for nothing. 2. Make a schedule. Discipline is one of the things that the military will teach you in a big way. However, you re going to need some of that discipline to get through your studies before you even take one step in a military uniform. Problem is, most people have a hard time disciplining themselves. They sleepwalk through their day and before they know it, the day is shot. So the next thing you have to do, after you ve adopted your can do attitude for the day, is make a schedule for studying. But not just make it force yourself to stick to it. That means, if you have to either reward yourself for completing your studies for the day or take away something if you don t (no TV that night) then do it. Do whatever it takes to make sure you study each and every day at the time(s) you ve designated.
3. Review the previous day s material. Unfortunately, when you re first learning something, it s hard to retain it. Have you ever noticed that you ll go over something one day, know it cold by the end of the day, and yet, when you to back to it the next day, it s gone? This is because of the way our short term memories work. We need to keep going over something until it finally becomes a long term memory and thus, something that we are unlikely to forget. This is why we can t remember what we had for dinner three nights ago but can remember that week in Paris that we spent last year. Okay, now that we ve gotten the three important things that you must do everyday out of the way, let s move on.
Study Tips I was trying to think of some fancy title for this section but I figured I d just get right down to the meat and potatoes. You re going to need some kind of practice test to get some kind of idea of how far along you ve come. I ll recommend an excellent one at the end of this report. Once you ve started taking your practice exam, the next thing you want to do is make note of the areas where you are scoring the lowest. You might want to make a chart similar to this. If, for example, you find that the math section is the one you re scoring the lowest on, you might want to spend more time the next day on that section. Naturally, this would require a modification of the schedule that you created for that particular day. This is why you have to make a schedule on a daily basis. You want to focus on the AFQT section first because that is ultimately the most important one.
If we take the example above, you probably want to spend about 60% of your time on Math, 20% on reasoning and paragraph comprehension and 10% on word knowledge. If you have the spare time, you might want to throw in some time for the extra sections beyond the AFQT. A weekly schedule might look something like this This isn t written in stone, but whatever schedule you make, stick to it no exceptions. The most important day above is Sunday review. As I said, you re not going to retain things right away. You will need to go over them several times at least. Finally, make sure you re organized. Keep all your papers, study materials, computer software, backpacks, whatever you re using, together. The last thing you want is to find yourself scrambling to try to find things.
Some Final Words No matter how well prepared you are for your exam, you re going to be nervous as hell taking it. That s just part of being a human being. So the one thing you DON T want to do on the day of the exam is give it a second thought. Don t do any last minute cramming. If you stuck to a schedule throughout the time you were studying, you should do fine. While actually taking the exam, take it one question at a time. The exam is timed but if you know your material, you should finish well under the time limit. If you run into a question that you don t know skip it for the time being and then go back to it after you have completed the rest of the exam. You don t want to waste time trying to think of an answer. Just move on. Eventually, it will come to you. One thing you have to realize. This isn t a one shot deal. You can take the exam in 30 days after the first failure, 30 days after the second and then 6 months after the third, so this isn t life and death. If you don t do well the first time, in just 30 short days, the first couple of times, you can try again. You do need to understand that if you DO pass but don t get the score that you were hoping for in order to get a specific assignment, you re out of luck there. Once you pass, that s it. You cannot retake for a low score, only a score that doesn t qualify. The exception is if you can prove that there were extenuating circumstances that caused the low score, such as you were on medication for an injury or illness. In such cases, exceptions may be made but are not guaranteed.
If you re taking the computerized version as opposed to the paper version, there is an advantage there. With the computerized version, the questions are weighted. The harder questions are worth more than the easy questions. So, if you get an easy question right, the computer will then ask you a harder question next. However, if you get a hard question wrong, the computer will ask you an easier question next. The advantage here, over the paper exam, is that you re unlikely to get hit with a number of hard questions consecutively IF you get one hard question wrong. Finally, I mentioned a study program that is really top notch. The questions are very similar to the ones that you will find on the real exam. You can check out their offer here: ASVAB Online Practice Center The ASVAB is no walk in the park, granted. But with proper preparation and an excellent program behind you, such as the ASVAB Online Practice Center, a career in the military CAN be a reality. To YOUR Military Success, Peter Shawn White