In this section, we take you through the 4 types of question you can expect to see on your ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension exam. This will help to focus your future study as well as prepare you for the day of the exam itself.
Posted in 2nd December, 2014 | Paragraph ComprehensionAbout the Exam
About the Exam
There are four main types of ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension question you can expect to be asked. Often, the questions are phrased in ways to try and catch you out, so rushing through this section will often result in a disappointing mark at the end of the exam. You need to take your time but use that time efficiently! The purpose of this exam, after all, is to test your ability to efficiently identify the correct information from a body of text, and this requires full concentration at all times. The exam may appear daunting at first and even frustrating as you’re proceeding through it, but you must, at the same time, persevere with the full intention of locating the correct answer.
There are four main types of question you should anticipate to see on the exam, and they are described as follows:
- Purpose – You’ll be presented with a paragraph of text about a given subject. It’s your job in this question to determine what the central purpose of the text is – this will be a multiple-choice question of four answers that are all related to the text, but you must discern which statement is reflective of the central purpose of the paragraph in question. In other words – what is the article about?
- Specific Detail – In contrast to the previous type of question, the ‘specific detail’ question focuses on a factual point, with the military candidate required to fact-check the point or points. This type of verification question requires you to scan the paragraph of text for each point and select the correct answer accordingly.
- Inference – For the inference type of question, it’ll be your job to infer, or draw your own conclusions, from the details provided in the paragraph. Rules of inference are commonly employed at crime-scenes, where investigators infer from a given body of evidence that a person was murdered as opposed to, say, accidental death.
- Contextual – In this type of question, it’ll be expected of you to understand the meaning of words in context. Words, after all, have different meanings depending on the context in which they occupy. It’s your job to discern the correct meaning of the word based on the context you find the word in.
Going Forward
If you require more information about these types of question – fear not – as we go through an example of each type of question below. It’s necessary to understand the framework of questions you’ll be expected to answer, as this will prepare your study much more acutely. You’ll know what to look for and your study time won’t be wasted by seeking out irrelevant information. By determining the nature of the question, you’ll also become much more accustomed to finding the answer swiftly and concisely, as opposed to spending a disproportionate amount of time on one particular question. With this in mind, we’re going to take a look at some specific study strategies you should consider while answering ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension exam questions.
In the next section, we will take a look at specific study strategies you can adopt to make the most of your learning.
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