ASVAB Preparation

ASVAB Info

The ASVAB is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and is used by all branches of the military to determine if you qualify to join as well as what jobs you can do. For the Air Force, the minimum to join is a 31 overall. That being said, your overall only determines if you qualify to join, the individual line scores will determine what jobs you can do. It is possible to make a 31 and not qualify for any Air Force jobs. We break your scores down in to four categories, Mechanical, Administrative, General, and Electronic (MAGE). Your overall score is the average of your Adminstration and General scores. Here are what test sections relate to each Air Force category so you can focus study efforts if you need to boost a specific area:

Mechanical - Auto Information (AI), Shop Information (SI), Mechanical Comprehension (MC), and Assembling Objects (AO)
Administrative - Word Knowledge (WK), Paragraph Comprehension (PC), and Mathematics Knowledge (MK)
General - Word Knowledge (WK), Paragraph Comprehension (PC), Arithmetic Reasoning (AR)
Electronic - Arithmetic Reasoning (AR), Mathematics Knowledge (MK), Electronics Information (EI), and General Science (GS)

The ASVAB Tests

There are various ways to take the ASVAB and you should ask your recruiter about your options.

The paper and pencil version is given at schools.
The computerized version is given at MEPS and and Military Entrance Testing Sites (METS) and must be scheduled by a recruiter.
The ASVAB Predictor Test (APT) which is a practice test you can take at home or your recruiters office and it will let you know what your overall score should be on the full test. This one takes around 20-30 minutes. The test does not cover mechancial or electrical categories.
The final test is the Pending Internet Computerized Adaptive Test or PiCAT which is the online ASVAB and the full test. This can be taken at home or the recruiting office but is up to your recruiter. There are additional requirements for this test. For one thing, you can only take it if you have never taken the ASVAB before other than the APT. Also, this version requires a verification test at an official testing site within 30 days of completion to lock in your results. If you don't complete the verification test in the allotted time you will have to take the computerized version and cannot do the PiCAT again. Your scores can change on the verification test depending on how you do, plus there is a 5% chance you will have to retake the full test.

Regardless of where or how you take the test, your scores are valid for each branch.

Study Resources

If you are looking to study to increase your scores then here are some resources to look in to. Every person has their preferred method of learning so it is up to you to find the method that works best for you. Note: These resources have been sent to us as options and are not officially endorsed by the Air Force.