ASVAB · AFQT
Paragraph Comprehension
Paragraph Comprehension is the ASVAB subtest in which you read a passage and answer one question on it. It is one of the four subtests that make up the AFQT.
- Items
- 10
- Time
- 27 minutes
- Format
- Computer-adaptive
- Answer options
- 4
- Counts toward
- AFQT
Screens of the trainer
The subtest
Measures
The subtest measures the ability to obtain information from written passages.
Paragraph Comprehension is one of the four subtests combined into the AFQT, with Word Knowledge, Arithmetic Reasoning and Mathematics Knowledge. The AFQT decides eligibility to enlist.
Format
The subtest has 10 items in 27 minutes. It is computer-adaptive: each item is chosen from your earlier answers, and an answer cannot be changed once submitted.
Each item is one passage followed by one question with four answer options.
On paper, the subtest has 15 items in 13 minutes.
Scoring
The subtest is reported as a standard score. The items are scaled for difficulty, so the score is comparable between test-takers who saw different items.
The standard score is combined with those of the three other AFQT subtests into the AFQT, a percentile from 1 to 99.
Item types
A passage, a question, four options
The question asks what the passage states, what the author implies, or what a word in the passage refers to.
Free practice test
Item 1 of 5
Reservoirs built for drinking-water supply sometimes submerge older structures that stood in the valley before the dam went up. A study of one reservoir found water levels had dropped nearly six feet during a summer of below-average rainfall, exposing a section of an old stone bridge that had been submerged for decades. Local historians confirmed the bridge dated to the 1890s and had been intentionally flooded when the reservoir was built to supply a growing town. Divers later photographed the exposed stonework before rising water covered it again the following spring.
According to the passage, what did the drop in water level expose?
Show the answer
Answer: A section of an old stone bridge
The drop exposed a section of an old stone bridge, dated to the 1890s.
The dam went up before the reservoir existed, so it is not what the water uncovered.
No pipeline and no boat dock appear in the passage.
Item 2 of 5
Tree rings form because trees grow faster in spring and summer, producing lighter, less dense wood, and slower in fall and winter, producing darker, denser wood. Each light-dark pair typically represents one year of growth, which lets scientists estimate a tree's age by counting the rings. Ring width also varies with rainfall and temperature, so unusually narrow rings can point to a drought year. Researchers have used long sequences of rings from old trees to reconstruct climate patterns stretching back thousands of years.
What is the main idea of the passage?
Show the answer
Answer: Tree rings record yearly growth and can reveal past weather
Each light-dark pair marks one year, and narrow rings point to a drought: growth and past weather are the passage's two points.
Counting rings gives a tree's age, so the first option contradicts the passage.
Rings form in every season, and their width varies with rainfall.
Item 3 of 5
The Pony Express carried mail across nearly two thousand miles between Missouri and California using relays of young riders on fast horses. Riders swapped to fresh horses at stations spaced roughly ten miles apart, allowing a single letter to cross the continent in about ten days. The service operated for only about eighteen months before the transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete.
In this passage, the word 'relays' most nearly means:
Show the answer
Answer: a chain of successive replacements
Riders swapped to fresh horses at stations ten miles apart: one rider and horse after another.
Nothing in the passage mentions pay, documents or mailboxes.
Item 4 of 5
A veteran welder mentored two apprentices differently: one received detailed step-by-step instructions for every task, while the other was given only a finished example and asked to figure out the process alone. The first apprentice asked frequent questions and rarely made a wrong cut, while the second struggled early on but grew more confident working through problems independently. Both apprentices eventually produced work of similar quality, though they reached that point by different paths.
What is the author's main purpose in describing the two apprentices?
Show the answer
Answer: To illustrate that an instructor can adapt methods to different learners
Two methods, two apprentices, the same quality in the end: the author shows a mentor fitting the method to the learner.
Neither method comes out superior, and the welder is not criticized.
Certification is never mentioned.
Item 5 of 5
After a city library removed late fines on children's books, staff noticed more overdue items were returned within a week of the notice email than before, even without a financial penalty attached. A separate survey found some parents had previously avoided the library altogether for fear of owing money they could not pay. Adult materials, which still carry a fine, showed no comparable change in return speed.
It can be inferred from the passage that the fine itself was:
Show the answer
Answer: Not the main reason children's books were returned on time
Children's books came back faster once their fine was gone, so the fine was not what brought them back on time.
Adult materials kept their fine and came back no faster, so the fine was not more effective there.
The passage names no state guidelines and never calls the fine the biggest cause of late returns.
The Frontline Forge trainer
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Instant feedback
Training mode shows the correct answer and its explanation after each answer, and the explanation points at what in the passage gives it. The clock pauses while you read.
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10 items in 27 minutes, ranked
Test mode runs 10 items in 27 minutes, the count and time of the real subtest, then reviews every item. The five items above come from a bank of 400 passages, each with its own question, and every session draws 10 of them at random.
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Ranked against other test-takers
Each score is ranked against the scores of other test-takers. The Statistics page plots the ranking of every attempt, so you see whether you are beating more test-takers than before.