ASVAB Practice Test.
Free practice exam — 60 verified questions, instant feedback.

Answer: D
Simple interest is principal × rate × time: 2000 × 0.05 × 3 = $300. One year earns $100, and three years earn three times that. The $2,300 answer is the final balance rather than the interest — reread whether the question asks for interest earned or total amount, because the ASVAB plants both among the choices on nearly every interest problem.

Answer: C
Greater than 4 means rolling 5 or 6 — two favorable outcomes out of six equally likely, so 2/6 = 1/3. Including 4 itself (three outcomes) produces the 1/2 trap, which is why the strict inequality matters: 'greater than' excludes the boundary, 'at least' includes it. Counting the favorable list explicitly beats reasoning about it abstractly.

Answer: A
Distribute the 3 across both terms: 6x − 12, then combine with 5x to get 11x − 12. Forgetting to multiply the −4 by 3 leaves −4 (the second choice); adding 5 + 3 + 2x-coefficients wrongly gives 16x. Distribution errors on the second term inside parentheses are the dominant algebra slip on Mathematics Knowledge — the negative term always gets the multiplier too.

Answer: D
Average speed is total distance over total time: 210 ÷ 3.5 = 60 mph. Dividing by 3 instead of 3.5 gives the 70 trap. A clean mental route: 3.5 hours at 60 mph is 180 + 30 = 210 miles, confirming the answer. Decimal-hour division trips more candidates than the concept, so converting 3.5 to 7/2 and multiplying by 2/7 is often faster.

Answer: B
Resistance is measured in ohms, electrical pressure in volts, current flow in amperes, and power in watts. Electronics Information leans on this unit map plus Ohm's law tying three of them together (V = I × R) and the power relation (P = V × I). Matching each quantity to its unit is the fastest-scoring question type in the electronics subtest.

Answer: D
A 2:5 ratio makes 7 total parts, so each part is 350 ÷ 7 = 50 pounds, and cement's 2 parts weigh 100 pounds. The 140 distractor treats the ratio as 2/5 of the total instead of 2/7 — the part-to-part versus part-to-whole confusion that ratio questions are built to catch. Summing the ratio's parts first is the reliable opening move.

Answer: B
Divide both sides by 4 first: x − 3 = 5, then add 3: x = 8. Distributing first (4x − 12 = 20 → 4x = 32 → x = 8) lands in the same place. The x = 5 trap stops after the division without restoring the subtracted 3. Mathematics Knowledge rewards picking whichever route has fewer steps and checking by substitution: 4(8 − 3) = 20 confirms it.

Answer: C
Evaluate each power: 3² = 9 and 2³ = 8, so the sum is 17. The 12 distractor multiplies base by exponent (3×2 + 2×3), the most common exponent misconception, and 36 multiplies the two powers instead of adding. Exponents mean repeated multiplication of the base — writing out 3×3 and 2×2×2 takes five seconds and eliminates the error class entirely.

Answer: C
Fencing follows the perimeter: 2 × (30 + 20) = 100 feet. The 600 answer is the area in square feet — the enclosure question's standard bait — and 50 adds the two dimensions once instead of twice. Translate the physical ask into the right measure first: fencing, borders, and trim are perimeter; paint, carpet, and sod are area.

Answer: B
Volume of a rectangular solid is length × width × height: 4 × 3 × 2 = 24 cubic feet. Adding the dimensions gives 9, and 52 is the crate's surface area — a different measure that answers a different question. Volume questions on Mathematics Knowledge stay computational; the skill is pairing the formula to the three-dimensional ask and keeping units cubic.

Answer: C
Supplementary angles sum to 180 degrees: 180 − 68 = 112. The 22-degree answer uses 90 — the complementary sum — which is the single most common confusion in this question family. A memory hook: C for complementary and corner (90°), S for supplementary and straight line (180°). Expect one of these two definitions on nearly every form.

Answer: C
Time equals distance divided by rate: 180 ÷ 45 = 4 hours. Arithmetic Reasoning leans heavily on the distance-rate-time triangle, and the fastest check is estimation — at 45 mph you cover 90 miles in 2 hours, so 180 miles must take twice that. Misreading which quantity is asked (time versus distance) causes more misses than the arithmetic itself.

Answer: B
Unit price is total cost divided by quantity: 240 ÷ 16 = 15 cents per ounce for the small box, and 336 ÷ 24 = 14 cents per ounce for the large one — so the larger box wins by a cent per ounce. Working in cents avoids decimal slips. Better-buy problems are an Arithmetic Reasoning staple, and the trap is comparing total prices instead of unit prices.

Answer: B
Ten days is five times the two-day period, so the output scales by five: 3 × 5 = 15 rooms. Setting it as a proportion (3/2 = x/10, so x = 15) reaches the same answer. Rate problems reward finding the multiplier between the given period and the asked period before touching the other quantity — jumping straight to multiplication of the wrong pair is the planted error.

Answer: B
The drop is the difference: 7 − (−9) = 7 + 9 = 16 degrees. Subtracting a negative adds its magnitude — the number line runs 7 degrees down to zero and 9 more below it. Signed-number temperature problems test exactly this crossing-zero step, and the 2-degree distractor comes from subtracting the digits while ignoring the sign entirely.

Answer: B
Strip the fixed charge first: 225 − 65 = 160 of labor, then 160 ÷ 40 = 4 hours. As an equation, 65 + 40h = 225. The classic error divides the whole bill by the hourly rate without removing the parts charge, giving an answer between 5 and 6 that rounds to the planted 5. Fixed-plus-variable billing is among the most repeated Arithmetic Reasoning setups.

Answer: A
Start with the actual fuel: 3/4 of 48 = 36 gallons, then subtract the trip's 15: 36 − 15 = 21 gallons. The 33 distractor subtracts from full capacity, skipping the fraction step entirely. Multi-step word problems on the ASVAB chain a fraction operation to an arithmetic one, and writing the intermediate value down prevents the skipped-step errors that timed pressure invites.

Answer: C
Percent change divides the change by the ORIGINAL value: (75 − 60) ÷ 60 = 15/60 = 25 percent. Dividing by the new value gives 20 percent — the standard trap — and 15 is the raw dollar change misread as a percent. On any percent-change item, identify the base before dividing; the earlier value is the base for an increase.

Answer: A
The job takes 4 × 6 = 24 worker-hours; 8 workers divide that into 24 ÷ 8 = 3 hours. Doubling the workers halves the time — an inverse proportion, which is why the 12-hour answer (direct proportion) is the planted error. Computing total worker-hours first converts every crew-size question into simple division and sidesteps the direct-versus-inverse confusion.

Answer: A
Solve like an equation: 2n < 6, so n < 3. Only 2 satisfies the strict inequality — 3 itself fails because 2(3) + 5 = 11 is not LESS than 11. Testing the boundary value is the tested skill: strict inequalities exclude equality, and the answer choice sitting exactly on the boundary is nearly always planted. Substituting each choice back verifies in seconds.

Answer: A
Abundant means existing in large quantity — plentiful. The sentence's logic helps: supplies after a delivery would naturally be ample, not spoiled or hidden. Word Knowledge rewards substitution testing: drop each candidate into the sentence and keep the one preserving the meaning. Rationed reverses the sense, describing scarcity management rather than plenty.

Answer: A
Concise means expressing much in few words — brief and to the point. It carries no meaning about volume, confusion, or medium; instructions can be concise whether whispered or written. The root shares 'cis' (cut, as in scissors and incision): concise language has the excess cut away — a root-based hook that resolves several related Word Knowledge entries.

Answer: A
To corroborate is to support or confirm with additional evidence — her account backed the witness up. Contradicted is the direct opposite, planted because unfamiliar words tempt opposite-guessing. Word Knowledge frequently tests confirm/contradict pairs; when unsure, the sentence's tone (two accounts aligning versus clashing) usually points the right way.

Answer: A
Arduous means demanding great effort — steep, strenuous, exhausting. Flat and open describes the opposite terrain, and scenic or unfamiliar describe qualities unrelated to effort. Context signals difficulty: terrain 'found arduous during a march' implies strain. When two options are unrelated qualities and one is an antonym, the remaining effort-related choice usually wins.

Answer: C
Candid means frank and truthful, speaking openly even when the message is unwelcome — here, leveling with the unit about danger. Secretive is its antonym; optimistic mistakes openness for positivity, and a candid assessment can be grim. Word Knowledge favors words whose common photo-related sense ('candid shot' = unposed, honest capture) hints at the core meaning.

Answer: A
To deteriorate is to decline in condition or quality — the rust is degrading the supports' integrity, not merely tinting them. Discolor understates the meaning (a frequent distractor pattern: a milder cousin of the right answer), while strengthen and support invert it. When two choices differ only in severity, the tested word's dictionary weight decides — deterioration is decay, not cosmetics.

Answer: B
Meticulous describes painstaking attention to detail — every item counted and recorded precisely. Casual and approximate is the antonym; secret and outdated describe unrelated qualities. An inventory context reinforces precision. Word Knowledge repeats a family of carefulness words (meticulous, thorough, diligent, scrupulous), and all resolve to detail-oriented care.

Answer: B
An impasse is a point where no advance is possible — literally a road with no passage (im- negating 'pass'). Agreement reverses the meaning, and recess mistakes a stuck state for a scheduled pause. The embedded root 'pass' plus the negating prefix decodes the word even when unfamiliar — the prefix-root strategy Word Knowledge is designed to reward.

Answer: B
Prudent means exercising sound, careful judgment — checking conditions before committing is wise caution, not fear. Fearful overshoots into anxiety, and experienced describes background rather than judgment; a novice can act prudently. The caution-versus-fear gradient recurs on Word Knowledge: prudent, wary, and cautious sit on the sensible side of the line.

Answer: B
To rectify is to set right — to fix the fault. The root 'rect' means straight or right (rectangle, correct, direct), a decoding hook for the whole family. Conceal implies hiding the problem instead of fixing it, a tempting misread given the looming inspection, but the word itself carries repair, not disguise. Root recognition converts unknown words into solvable ones.

Answer: C
Scarce means insufficient for the demand — hard to come by. The desert context underlines shortage, not quality (contaminated) or logistics (heavy). Scarcity vocabulary (scarce, sparse, meager, deficient) forms a recurring Word Knowledge cluster, all resolving to 'not enough,' with their antonyms (abundant, ample, plentiful) forming the opposite cluster.

Answer: D
The passage credits modern studies on both sides of the ledger: rare tissue damage, dramatic survival improvement — evidence overturned the old caution. Cost, lost manuals, and injury rates never appear. Paragraph Comprehension rewards cause-stated-in-text answers; the correct choice restates the passage's own reason, while distractors import plausible outside explanations.

Answer: A
Every sentence serves one claim: cold cuts cranking power, so winter exposes weakness summer masked. The passage recommends nothing — no replacement schedule, no starting ban — and 'impossible to detect' contradicts the winter-reveals point. Main-idea items reward the choice covering the whole short passage without adding advice the author never gave.

Answer: C
'Only if both crews shared the same codebook' and 'meaning was convention' point to agreement between parties as the load-bearing condition. Size, speed, and weather are never raised. Inference items on Paragraph Comprehension stay one small step from the text — the answer rephrases the stated condition rather than speculating beyond it.

Answer: C
The passage contrasts flagging losses 'within days' against discovery at the annual inventory 'when trails had long gone cold' — speed of detection while traceable is the stated advantage. Double logging increases paperwork rather than reducing it, and the annual inventory still exists in the passage. The advantage named in the text beats advantages that merely sound administrative.

Answer: D
The passage states the reason directly: dead reckoning 'accumulates error with every hour sailed,' so periodic corrections against an independent reference kept the estimate honest. The other choices invent mechanics the text never claims — course and speed are inputs the method uses, not unmeasurable quantities. Cause questions reward the reason the passage itself supplies.

Answer: D
Photosynthesis uses chlorophyll to capture light energy, combining carbon dioxide and water into glucose and releasing oxygen. Respiration runs the reverse direction — breaking glucose down for energy — in plants and animals alike, and it is the standard distractor because the two processes mirror each other. General Science tests the pairing: photosynthesis stores energy, respiration releases it.

Answer: A
Arteries carry blood away from the heart ('A' for artery and away), veins return it, and capillaries are the microscopic exchange vessels connecting the two. Most arterial blood is oxygen-rich, but the definition is direction, not oxygen content — the pulmonary artery carries oxygen-poor blood away from the heart, the exception General Science uses to punish the oxygen-based shortcut.

Answer: D
Water freezes and melts at 32°F (0°C) and boils at 212°F (100°C) at sea level. The Celsius values 0 and 100 are planted as Fahrenheit answers — the scale-swap trap this question family always sets. Anchoring both pairs (32/212 Fahrenheit, 0/100 Celsius) closes out every version of the phase-change temperature question General Science asks.

Answer: C
The order outward is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, then the gas and ice giants. Venus is the common wrong pick because it is the hottest planet — its dense carbon dioxide atmosphere traps heat — but hottest and closest are different superlatives, and the question asks distance. General Science regularly splits such near-miss superlatives across the choices.

Answer: A
Producers — chiefly green plants and algae — manufacture food through photosynthesis and anchor every food chain. Consumers eat other organisms, decomposers recycle dead matter back into nutrients, and predators are a subset of consumers. The producer-consumer-decomposer triad is a General Science fixture, tested both as definitions and as ordering within an ecosystem diagram.

Answer: B
Ohm's law rearranges to I = V ÷ R: 24 ÷ 12 = 2 amperes. Inverting the division gives 0.5, and multiplying gives 288 — both planted. The triangle memory aid (V on top, I and R below) sets up all three rearrangements: cover the unknown and the layout shows the operation. Electronics Information asks this in every direction, so the triangle pays for itself.

Answer: A
Copper's loosely bound outer electrons carry current readily, which is why household wiring is copper. Rubber, glass, and dry wood are insulators — their electrons are tightly held — and rubber's role is coating conductors for safety, not conducting. The conductor/insulator split, plus silver-copper-aluminum ranking among conductors, is standard Electronics Information ground.

Answer: C
Fuses melt and breakers trip when current exceeds their rating, opening the circuit before wiring overheats — overcurrent protection, nothing more. Transformers change voltage, batteries store energy, and rectifiers convert AC to DC; each is a separate device Electronics Information tests individually. Matching protective, storage, and conversion roles to their devices resolves a whole question family.

Answer: B
A series circuit has one path, so the same current passes through every element; what divides among series resistors is voltage, in proportion to resistance. Parallel circuits reverse the rule: voltage is common and current divides. The series/parallel duality — what stays constant versus what divides — is the single highest-yield concept in Electronics Information.

Answer: C
The alternator converts crankshaft rotation into electrical power, recharging the battery and running the vehicle's electrical systems; the battery's main job is starting the engine and buffering. Cooling belongs to the radiator system, filtration to the oil filter, ignition to plugs and coils. Auto Information maps each subsystem to its single primary role exactly this way.

Answer: A
The cycle draws in the air-fuel mixture (intake), squeezes it (compression), ignites it to drive the piston (power), and expels the burnt gases (exhaust). The memory hook 'suck, squeeze, bang, blow' preserves the order. Auto Information asks the sequence directly and through which-stroke-does-X variants — spark timing at the top of compression, valves open during intake and exhaust.

Answer: B
A torque wrench reads out the twisting force applied, letting fasteners be tightened to a specified foot-pound value — critical where over-tightening warps parts or strips threads. Pipe wrenches grip round stock, extensions merely reach, and feeler gauges measure small clearances. Shop Information is a tool-to-purpose matching exercise; precision-measurement tools recur most.

Answer: D
A jigsaw's narrow reciprocating blade steers through curves and interior cutouts in sheet stock. Hacksaws cut metal, crosscut saws make straight cuts across wood grain, and miter saws make fixed-angle straight cuts. Shop Information's saw family question rewards matching blade geometry to the cut: narrow blades turn, wide blades track straight, fine teeth cut metal.

Answer: A
Mechanical advantage is load divided by effort: 300 ÷ 75 = 4 — the machine multiplies force four times, paid for by moving the effort end four times farther. Subtracting gives 225 (a planted non-ratio), and inverting gives 0.25. Mechanical Comprehension returns to MA = load/effort constantly, across levers, pulleys, and inclined planes alike.

Answer: D
Meshed gears reverse direction, and speed scales inversely with tooth count: 20/60 means the driven gear turns at one-third the speed but with roughly triple the torque — the speed-for-force trade every gear train makes. Same-direction rotation requires an idler between them. Mechanical Comprehension tests the trio together: direction, speed ratio, torque ratio.

Answer: A
A ramp is the inclined plane: it trades a longer path for a smaller required force, with mechanical advantage equal to slope length over rise height. Pulleys redirect rope tension, wheel-and-axle pairs multiply torque, and levers pivot about a fulcrum. Classifying everyday devices into the six simple machines is a Mechanical Comprehension staple worth automatic recall.

Answer: D
Pascal's principle: pressure on an enclosed fluid transmits undiminished in every direction, so pedal force at a small piston becomes multiplied force at larger wheel pistons. The system works precisely because brake fluid does NOT readily compress — the compressibility choice inverts the physics (air in the lines is what makes brakes spongy). Hydraulics questions recur across MC forms.

Answer: D
A fixed pulley only redirects force — pulling down to lift up — with a mechanical advantage of 1. Force reduction requires a movable pulley or a multi-rope block and tackle, where advantage equals the number of supporting rope segments. The fixed-versus-movable distinction, and counting supporting ropes, are the two moves Mechanical Comprehension pulley questions demand.

Answer: C
Sound is a mechanical wave carried by particle collisions, so it travels fastest where particles are most tightly coupled: solids beat liquids, liquids beat gases, and a vacuum carries no sound at all. Steel outruns water and air by an order of magnitude. The vacuum choice is the give-away inversion — no medium, no mechanical wave — and General Science reuses this ranking often.

Answer: B
The AFQT is computed from the standard scores of exactly four subtests — AR, MK, PC, and WK — the math and verbal core. The science, technical, and spatial subtests feed job-qualification composites instead, so a candidate strong in mechanics but weak in math-verbal can qualify for lines of work yet struggle on the enlistment gate. Prioritize the AFQT four in prep time.

Answer: A
AFQT scores are percentiles from 1 to 99 against a national sample of 18-to-23-year-olds: 90 means scoring at or above 90 percent of that reference group — not a percent correct and not raw points. Category I spans 93-99, but categories describe score bands, not pass/fail lines; each service branch sets its own minimum. The percentile misconception is the most common ASVAB scoring error.

Answer: A
The computer-adaptive ASVAB tailors difficulty: a correct answer typically brings a harder item, an incorrect answer an easier one, homing in on your ability level with fewer questions. Because each answer drives the next selection, adaptive tests do not allow revisiting earlier items — a difference from paper testing that changes strategy: commit carefully the first time.

Answer: A
Official retest policy: a one-month wait before the first retest, another month before the second, and six months between any retests after that. A separate rule guards against coached spikes: an AFQT gain of 20 or more points within six months triggers a required confirmation test. Plan enlistment timelines around these gates rather than assuming a quick reattempt.

Answer: D
Unfinished items are scored as if answered randomly — an explicit penalty procedure. The program notes the limits are liberal enough that nearly all examinees finish, so the practical takeaway is pacing awareness rather than panic: keep moving, because a stretch of unanswered items costs more than a few considered guesses ever would.