How to Raise Your Army GT Score

Series Summary

Pay grades are used within the military of the United States for personnel and pay purposes and are based on a service member's rank. While ranks may have different names between the five military services, each rank corresponds to a pay grade in one of three tiers: enlisted, warrant officer and commissioned officer. Pay grade is essential when determining a member's entitlements such as basic pay, basic allowance for housing or to determine seniority among a group of members from different services. In this free video series, an Army sergeant and recruiting officer provides information on Army pay grades and offers advice on becoming an Army officer, pilot or ranger. Learn about the pay scales for active duty officers, the Army Corps of Engineers and commissioned officers. Find out how much officers make at different ranks, what chaplains are paid and what someone could expect to make as an Army drill sergeant with this information.

Video Transcript

"My name is Staff Sgt. Hawkins. I'm a local Army recruiter, based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Today, I'm going to talk about how to raise your GT score. Let me start by telling you what a GT score is. GT means General Technical. When you join the Army, you have three qualifications you have to meet. You have to meet a moral qualification, meaning, that's your law violations. You can't have too many law violations. The next, would be your physical qualifications. You have to meet a height and weight standard, and you can't have anything physically wrong with you. You can't currently be on any medications, and then you also have a test that you have to pass, called the ASVAB, Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, big long name, for a little bitty test. When you take that test at the MEPS, which is the Military Entrance Processing Station, it does take about an hour and a half. That test breaks down into several different categories. One of the categories is GT. The GT score, we use that across the board, as kind of our sounding board, to see exactly where you're at, as far as certain jobs. You have to have a certain GT score to qualify. To be a recruiter or to be a drill sergeant, or something like that, that you may have volunteered for, you have to have at least a 110 GT score. To raise your GT score, we have, if you're in the military already, we have certain classes you can take, through the Army Education Center, on base, to raise your GT score, and those classes are free. They are paid for. If you have not yet joined the military, and you're thinking about it, and you want to raise your score, we have a website. It's called march2success.com. It's a free army website. You can go on there and practice. You can also do your practice ACT and SAT prep, and it does not cost anything. To learn more about the GT score, and the ASVAB test in general, please give me a call, at (801) 487-8686."