About the ASVAB Test
The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) is administered to high school students and potential military recruits to help determine which career fields are best suited for them. High school counselors use the scores from the ASVAB for career counseling, but military recruiters use the scores to determine training potential and career placement.
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Versions
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There are three basic versions of the ASVAB. The first is a paper and pencil version which is given to high school students as part of the ASVAB Career Exploration Program. Students generally take the test as a group and the scores are reported to their guidance counselors as well as the students themselves. Another paper and pencil version is given by military recruiters to potential recruits. These may be offered to either groups or individuals at a military testing facility. The final version, which is given to approximately 70 percent of potential military recruits, is the Computerized Adaptive Testing version (CAT-ASVAB). This version is also administered at military testing facilities.
Subtests
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The ASVAB is broken up into nine subtests (eight for the student version), which can be grouped into categories. The Science and Technical subtests make up the bulk of the test. These subtests are General Science (GC), Electronics Information (EI), Mechanical Comprehension (MC) and Auto and Shop Information (AS), which is administered as two separate tests but combined for scoring purposes. The Verbal subtests are Word Knowledge (WK) and Paragraph Comprehension (PC). The Math subtests are Math Knowledge and Arithmetic Reasoning (AR). The final category, Spatial, has only one subtest, Assembling Objects (AO), which is not included in the student version of the test.
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AFQT
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The Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT) score is calculated by combining the math and verbal subtest and then computing a standardize score for the combination. The result is a percentile score from 1 to 99 which indicates how well the person scored as compared to the results of a 1997 study sample of 18 to 23 year-olds who took the test. This study sample is sometimes referred to as the "standard group." Although the AFQT is calculated on the student version, it has little meaning for them unless the student plans to join the military. Potential recruits must earn a minimum score, which is different depending on the service, in order to join. As of 2009, the minimum scores range from 31 for the Army and 36 for the Air Force and Coast Guard.
Composite Scores
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In addition to the AFQT, a variety of composite scores, which are sometimes called line scores, are calculated and reported. For the student version, the subtests are separated into the math, verbal and science and technical categories to calculate three scores which are called "career exploration scores." Each military service has a series of line scores it uses to determine training potential and career placement. These scores vary widely and the calculation methods ca be very complex. For instance, the Air Force mechanical score is calculated as "AR + 2(PC + WK) + MC + AS" and most Army scores are "computed as a non-integer weighted linear combination of all ASVAB subtests."
Career Exploration Program
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Students in 10th, 11th and 12th grades are eligible to take the ASVAB as part of the Career Exploration Program. Participation in this program does not necessarily require any interest military service. In fact, only 31 percent of students who took the test did so because of service interest. Almost two-thirds of the students who took the test as part of the program said their ASVAB scores helped them consider career fields they had not originally considered themselves.
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