Tips for Answering World Knowledge questions on the ASVAB
The difficulty of word knowledge questions depends a great deal on the vocabulary you have acquired during your elementary and high school years. There are other methods of acquiring vocabulary skills, too. One of the best ways of acquiring broader vocabulary skills is through reading with a dictionary by your side. When you encounter a word you don't know, look it up. This process is even easier when you are reading online from reliable sources.
Reliable sources are the ones that have high standards in written communication. The vocabulary used in online newspapers and magazines, for example, holds to a higher standard than the grammar and spelling you might encounter in text messaging on your cell phone.
Online reading provides more opportunities. When you encounter a word you don't know during your computer reading, it is a simple matter to look it up. Most word processes have a dictionary function. All you have to do is type in the word and you will quickly have the meaning, the antonym (opposite of the meaning), synonyms (words that mean the same thing), and other possible meanings.
Although you would do better on the ASVAB if you paid attention during the vocabulary lessons in your English or Language Arts classes, there are strategies you can apply if you didn't.
It's very likely you may encounter a strange word on the ASVAB, no matter how much vocabulary drill you did beforehand. In such cases, you will have to guess as to the best answer. However, there is a way of increasing your chances of making the right guess and so increase your overall score. Consider the word "communications."
You may remember from your English classes that the "ions" ending of the word means it is a noun. Therefore, you can guess that the entire word is a noun that refers to a combination of all the types of "communication" that passes between people. That would mean letters, emails, voice mail, conversations, and so forth. That would help you answer the question using "context."
Using context means that you can use the words and phrases surrounding the vocabulary word you don't know to provide clues to the meaning. Consider the word "ejected" in the following example.
The jet was shot down by a missile but the pilot must have ejected because one witness saw a parachute.
You may not know the meaning of "ejected" but you do know that a missile shot down the jet and that the pilot probably parachuted. Therefore, you can conclude that the word "ejected" means to get out of the aircraft in some way. You would look to the possible answers to get the one that most closely resembles "getting out."