Is the ASVAB for You?

While most of the people taking the ASVAB have little intention of entering military service, the military is one of the largest employers in the country for young men and women in the United States. While the very thought of anything military conjures up images of infantry slogging through rough terrain with rifles, or teams of soldiers loading huge shells into giant artillery pieces, the reality of military service is quite different. The increasing sophistication and complexity of military service requires a whole range of support occupations that require a high degree of skill and a variety of aptitudes. The ASVAB is designed to determine whether the potential enlistee has such skills and aptitudes.

Modern military service requires staffing in a variety of areas that might not be immediately apparent to the high school graduate. Peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts on the part of the military services require outreach to students having suitable capabilities. Communication and understanding assume even greater importance, and greater efficiency in many of the areas tested on the ASVAB is required.

The first point of contact for students who are thinking of military service is the military recruiter from the service in question. This contact often proceeds without further action from the student; indeed, most students take the ASVAB, find out what possibilities are open to them, and then decide if they wish to actually enlist in military service and undergo additional enlistment processing. Young people should explore all career options before deciding to take one path or another. It is quite common for many students to visit recruiters, ask questions, answer questions, take the ASVAB, and decide that military service is not for them.

However, it is estimated that approximately 80 percent of persons visiting military recruitment offices have a strong desire to gain experience in military service. With regard to the ASVAB itself, which consists of 10 individual test areas, four of the ten individual test areas are used to obtain a composite score called the AFQT score. The AFQT score is based on the following four areas: Arithmetic Reasoning, Mathematics Knowledge, World Knowledge, and Paragraph Comprehension. The composite AFQT score is designed to measure overall aptitudes that identify those persons who can successfully be trained for specialized military service occupations. The Defense Department considers the AFQT a reliable predictor of on-the-job success. In addition to serving as a screening process by category ranking, the military services also use the ASVAB testing to examine the aptitudes for various job occupations in those services.