My Trip to the Army Reserve Recruiter: Part Two

Click here to read part one.

Returning to the recruiting station, I shook Sergeant H.'s hand and told him I was ready to schedule to take the ASVAB. This is an acronym for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.

It is the test given to all new recruits to determine several scores that will guide their branch of service in placing them in an MOS. It also helps determine the amount of cash bonuses and your eligibility for things like going to Officer Candidate School.

The ASVAB was developed by the Department of Defense in the 1960's and is supposed to be an indicator of a recruit's ability to perform in several key areas of military proficiency. The sections are:

Word Knowledge(WK): this tests your ability to match words with their synonyms, and eliminate a word that doesn't belong in a group.

Paragraph Comprehension (PC): tests your ability to read and understand the main ideas and arguments made in a paragraph.

Arithmetic Reasoning (AR): tests your knowledge of multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction of numbers, including positive and negative integers, fractions, and square roots. (Calculators are not allowed.)

Mathematics Knowledge (MK): full of algebra 1 and basic geometry questions; to determine the size of angles, the value of a variable in an equation, etc.

General Science (GS): measures your knowledge of the physical and biological sciences learned in junior and senior high school.

Auto and Shop Information (AS): tests your knowledge of automobile engines and their parts and functions; uses pictures.

Mechanical Comprehension (MC): tests knowledge of mechanics, with pictures used in all questions.

Electronics Information (EI): tests knowledge of electronics and circuitry, with pictures of circuits used in most of the questions.

Assembling Objects (AO): exactly what it sounds like, using pictures.