ASVAB Practice Test
This is a free 15-question sampler in the style of the ASVAB. It leans on the four subtests that make up your AFQT score, arithmetic reasoning, mathematics knowledge, word knowledge and paragraph comprehension, with a few general science, mechanical comprehension and electronics items mixed in. Answer all 15 questions, then check your score and read the explanation for every question.
A driver covers 288 miles in 6 hours. At the same average speed, how far will she travel in 9 hours?
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All 15 questions at a glance
Prefer to read before you play? Every question in the sampler is listed below. Answers and explanations stay collapsed until you open them.
1. A driver covers 288 miles in 6 hours. At the same average speed, how far will she travel in 9 hours?
- A. 396 miles
- B. 432 miles
- C. 456 miles
- D. 480 miles
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. 432 miles
Find the rate first, then apply it: 288 miles divided by 6 hours is 48 miles per hour, and 48 times 9 is 432 miles. Most arithmetic reasoning word problems work this way, so pull the rate out before you touch the number the question is asking about.
2. A jacket costs 80 dollars. It is marked down 25 percent, and a week later the sale price is cut another 10 percent. What is the final price?
- A. 52.00 dollars
- B. 54.00 dollars
- C. 56.00 dollars
- D. 60.00 dollars
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. 54.00 dollars
Each discount applies to the price at that moment, so 80 times 0.75 is 60, and 60 times 0.90 is 54 dollars. Successive percentages never simply add, which is why 35 percent off, or 52 dollars, is the trap answer here.
3. Complete the sentence.
A recipe uses 3 cups of flour to make 24 cookies. To make 36 cookies at the same ratio you need _____ cups of flour.
Options for blank 1: 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 4.5
36 cookies is 1.5 times 24 cookies, so the flour scales by the same factor: 3 times 1.5 is 4.5 cups. Setting up a proportion, 3 over 24 equals x over 36, gives the same answer and is safer when the numbers are less friendly.
4. A truck uses 12 gallons of fuel to travel 342 miles. How many gallons will it need for 570 miles at the same rate?
- A. 18 gallons
- B. 19 gallons
- C. 20 gallons
- D. 22 gallons
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. 20 gallons
The truck gets 342 divided by 12, or 28.5 miles per gallon, and 570 divided by 28.5 is 20 gallons. Check the answer by multiplying back: 28.5 times 20 is 570, which confirms the rate was applied the right way round.
5. If 5x minus 3 equals 2x plus 12, what is the value of x?
- A. 3
- B. 4
- C. 5
- D. 9
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. 5
Move the variable terms to one side and the numbers to the other: subtracting 2x from both sides gives 3x minus 3 equals 12, then adding 3 gives 3x equals 15, so x is 5. Substituting 5 back in gives 22 on both sides, which is the check worth doing every time.
6. A rectangle is 12 centimeters long and 5 centimeters wide. How long is its diagonal?
- A. 7 centimeters
- B. 13 centimeters
- C. 17 centimeters
- D. 60 centimeters
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. 13 centimeters
The diagonal splits the rectangle into two right triangles, so the Pythagorean theorem applies: 12 squared plus 5 squared is 169, and the square root of 169 is 13. The 5, 12, 13 triple is worth memorizing alongside 3, 4, 5, and note that 60 is the area, not a length.
7. Which of the following numbers are prime?
Select all that apply.
- A. 1
- B. 2
- C. 9
- D. 17
- E. 51
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. 2, D. 17
A prime number has exactly two distinct factors, itself and 1, which makes 2 and 17 the only primes here. 1 has only one factor so it does not qualify, 9 is 3 times 3, and 51 is 3 times 17, which is easy to miss because 51 looks prime at a glance.
8. Meticulous most nearly means:
- A. careless
- B. thorough
- C. hostile
- D. temporary
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. thorough
Meticulous describes someone who works with great attention to small details, so thorough is the closest match. Word knowledge items reward recognizing the general direction of a word, so when you are unsure, decide first whether the word is positive or negative and cut the options that point the wrong way.
9. Complete the sentence.
The sergeant's instructions were so _____ that nobody in the squad had to ask a follow-up question.
Options for blank 1: ambiguous, explicit, tedious, reluctant
Show answer and explanation
Answer: explicit
Explicit means stated clearly and in full, which is exactly why no one needed to ask anything. Ambiguous is its opposite, and tedious and reluctant describe how something feels or how a person acts rather than how clear a message is.
10. The recruit's tenacity impressed the instructor. In this sentence, tenacity most nearly means:
- A. persistence
- B. hesitation
- C. curiosity
- D. physical strength
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. persistence
Tenacity is the quality of holding on and refusing to quit, so persistence is the match. When a word appears in a sentence, use the sentence: an instructor being impressed signals a positive trait, which already rules out hesitation.
11. Read this passage. A compass needle points to magnetic north, which is not the same as true north. The gap between the two is called declination, and its size depends on where on Earth you are standing. Navigators correct for declination before walking a bearing, because a small error at the start turns into a large one over distance. What is the main idea of the passage?
- A. Compasses are unreliable and should not be used for navigation
- B. Navigators have to adjust for the gap between magnetic and true north
- C. True north is easier to locate in the field than magnetic north
- D. Declination has the same value everywhere on Earth
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Navigators have to adjust for the gap between magnetic and true north
The passage defines declination and then explains why navigators correct for it, so the correction is the point being made. The other options either contradict the passage or stretch it into a claim it never makes, which is the usual shape of wrong answers in paragraph comprehension.
12. Read this passage. A fire needs three things at the same time: fuel, oxygen and enough heat to keep the reaction going. Take away any one of them and the fire goes out. A blanket smothers a small grease fire by cutting off its air supply, while water puts out a wood fire by cooling it below the temperature it needs to keep burning. According to the passage, a blanket stops a grease fire by:
- A. lowering the temperature of the grease
- B. removing the fuel from the fire
- C. cutting off the oxygen supply
- D. adding a fourth element to the reaction
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. cutting off the oxygen supply
The passage says the blanket works by cutting off air, and air is the oxygen leg of the three. Detail questions are answered from the text alone, so resist filling in what you happen to know about fires and point at the sentence that says it.
13. Which of the following are chemical changes?
Select all that apply.
- A. Iron rusting on a gate
- B. Ice melting in a glass
- C. Wood burning in a fire
- D. Sugar dissolving in water
- E. Baking soda fizzing in vinegar
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Iron rusting on a gate, C. Wood burning in a fire, E. Baking soda fizzing in vinegar
A chemical change produces a new substance, which is what happens when iron becomes iron oxide, wood burns into ash and gases, and baking soda reacts with vinegar to release carbon dioxide. Melting and dissolving are physical changes because the substance is still the same one and can be recovered by freezing or evaporating.
14. Complete the sentence.
You are lifting a heavy crate with a crowbar. Moving the fulcrum closer to the crate _____ the force you have to apply.
Options for blank 1: increases, decreases, has no effect on, doubles
Show answer and explanation
Answer: decreases
Sliding the fulcrum toward the load makes the effort arm longer and the load arm shorter, which raises the mechanical advantage and lowers the force you need. You pay for it in distance, because your end of the bar has to travel further to raise the crate the same amount.
15. Which of the following materials are good electrical conductors?
Select all that apply.
- A. Copper
- B. Rubber
- C. Silver
- D. Glass
- E. Aluminum
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Copper, C. Silver, E. Aluminum
Metals conduct well because their outer electrons move freely, and silver, copper and aluminum are the three you see most often in wiring. Rubber and glass are insulators, which is why rubber is wrapped around the copper in a cable and glass is used for the insulators on power lines.
What's actually on the ASVAB
The ASVAB is not one test, it is a battery of short subtests. The ones you are scored on are General Science, Arithmetic Reasoning, Word Knowledge, Paragraph Comprehension, Mathematics Knowledge, Electronics Information, Mechanical Comprehension, Assembling Objects and the automotive and shop material. The format depends on where you sit it. The computer adaptive version taken at a military entrance processing station is shorter and adjusts question difficulty as you answer, and it splits automotive and shop into two separate subtests. The paper version used at some satellite test sites combines them into one. The number of questions and the time limit per subtest differ between the two versions, so use the numbers in the version you are actually scheduled for.
The score that decides whether you can enlist at all is the AFQT, and it comes from only four of those subtests. It is built from Arithmetic Reasoning, Mathematics Knowledge and a verbal score derived from Word Knowledge plus Paragraph Comprehension, with the verbal part counted twice. The AFQT is reported as a percentile from 1 to 99, which tells you how you did against a nationally representative sample of 18 to 23 year olds, not what percent of questions you got right. A 62 means you scored as well as or better than 62 percent of that reference group. Minimum AFQT scores are set by each branch and can change with recruiting needs and with whether you have a high school diploma, so get the current number from a recruiter rather than from a forum post.
Your total across all subtests is not a thing anyone uses. What decides which jobs you qualify for are line scores, also called composite scores, and each branch builds its own out of different subtest combinations. That is why the subtests outside the AFQT still matter. A strong Electronics Information or Mechanical Comprehension result can open technical and maintenance fields even when your AFQT is only average, and a weak one can close them. If you already know which job you want, ask which line score it uses and study for that, not for the test as a whole. Results are generally good for two years, and there is a mandatory waiting period before a retest that gets longer with repeated attempts.
How to use this sampler
These 15 questions are weighted the way the AFQT is weighted. Twelve of them come from the four subtests that decide your eligibility, and the last three give you a taste of General Science, Mechanical Comprehension and Electronics Information so you can see what the technical line scores test. If a whole area feels foreign after you finish, that is the area to start with.
One difference to be clear about. The real ASVAB is entirely multiple choice with one right answer. This sampler also uses select all that apply and fill in the blank, because those formats make you commit to a full idea instead of recognizing one option. Treat them as study tools rather than as a preview of the screen you will see on test day.
Take it in one sitting, without notes and without a calculator, since calculators are not allowed on the ASVAB and you work on scratch paper instead. Aim for roughly a minute per question. Then read the explanation for every question, including the ones you got right, because a lucky guess and a solid answer look identical on a score screen. One more habit worth building: on the computer adaptive version you cannot skip a question or go back to change an earlier answer within a subtest, so practice choosing your best option and moving on.
How StudyPDF builds full practice tests from your own materials
Fifteen questions can show you which subtests are shaky. They cannot get you ready on their own, and a generic question bank has no idea which line score your target job uses or which topics you already have down.
StudyPDF works from your material instead. You upload your ASVAB study guide, your old algebra notes or the handouts your recruiter gave you, and Bo, the study agent, builds full-length practice tests from those exact pages. Every question is grounded in your material, and every explanation cites where the answer comes from, so you can check the source when something looks off. You can regenerate fresh tests as often as you want, narrow them to one subtest like arithmetic reasoning, and track which topics you keep missing.
You do not have to upload anything to start. You can just name a topic, say fractions and ratios or electrical circuits, and Bo will build a practice test on it. Uploading your own material makes the questions match your book more closely, but a topic name is enough to get going. Starting is free.
Written by the StudyPDF team. Last updated 2026-08-19.