If you are
interested about a career in the US military, then you should consider taking
the ASVAB test. ASVAB stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.
There are few things you should now about ASVAB
in general. Taking this test provides the military authorities about your
abilities and shows them whether you are, or aren’t, capable of joining the
army and performing all the tasks a soldier should perform. The test is
consisted of 9 sections, but it is considered that four areas are most
important and they influence the results of ASVAB in general the most. There are many organisations included in
the preparations for the test and its execution, but the Department of Defence,
or to be more precise the United States Military Entrance Processing Command deals
with ASVAB in general.
The concept of the ASVAB test
After you pass
the ASVAB test you are able to join the US Army. Different branches of the US
Army, such as Navy, Marines and Air Force, require different score results from
the candidates and different skills to be developed in order to be able to
fulfil the proper tasks. The results are calculated with combination of the
nine categories. In the past, ASVAB had 5 categories, now it has 9. While in
the past a candidate would take ASVAB in
General Information, now that section is divided to ASVAB in General Science and ASVAB in Word Knowledge. The technique
of computing the results is based on the performances of all candidates taking
the test, so if you have an overall score of 55% it means that you scored
better than 55% of the candidates taking the test. ASVAB in general is simply to any other the test, the difference
being that it is specially designed for US military purposes.
Categories and areas in the ASVAB test
If
you already know which branch of the military you want to join, you should know
the specific requirements for your profession and focus more on that area. For
example, let’s say that you want to join the Air Force. There are four score
fields which are combined from the ASVAB sub-test categories. The Mechanical
Aptitude Score is based on the results of the ASVAB in General Science, Mechanical Comprehension and Auto/Shop.
If you want to have a high score in your Air Force ASVAB in General Aptitude, you will have to focus on Arithmetical
Reasoning and Verbal Expression. The Army section has 10 composite scores; each
consisted of one or more ASVAB sub-tests. For example, the Army ASVAB in General Maintenance is consisted
of the results from General Science, Auto/Shop, Mathematical Knowledge and
Electronic Information.
General
Science is very important for becoming a US marine
Let
us say that you want to become a US marine. There are many jobs in the Marine Corps
and the scores on your ASVAB test. Most of the jobs are suitable to one of the
three categories. And your eligibility in each of them depends on your
performance on the test. Your score in ASVAB
in General Science would influence the MM category, i.e. the ASVAB in General Maintenance,
Construction, Utility and Chemical Maintenance. The ASVAB in General Science would also influence the EL (Electronics)
category, so as you can see General Science is very important if you want to
become a marine.