Vocabulary Tips for the ASVAB

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) has a Word Knowledge subtest, which quizzes you on vocabulary, or word meanings. Vocabulary questions may also appear in the Paragraph Comprehension portion, so put the following tips to use:

• Vocab questions almost always ask you to choose synonyms (words with similar meanings) rather than antonyms (words with opposite meanings), but read the directions carefully to avoid making a careless mistake.

• Word Knowledge questions ask you to find the word that most closely means the same thing as the given word, so choose the answer that is most right instead of trying to find a word that means exactly the same thing.

• Beware of prefixes that alter a word's meaning. A- and un- are examples of prefixes that change the meaning of a word. For example, likely and unlikely have opposite meanings.