Auditory learners

Auditory learners use hearing to process information. When given a choice, strong auditory learners sit where they can easily hear the speaker and where outside sounds won’t interfere. Some auditory learners sit to one side (on the side of their strongest ear). Many times, auditory learners have an easier time understanding the words from songs on the radio and announcements on public address systems than other people do.

Here are some characteristics of auditory learners:

• They prefer to hear information.
• They have difficulty following written directions.
• They have difficulty with reading and writing.
• They may not look the speaker in the eye; instead, they may turn their eyes away so they can focus more on listening.

If you’re an auditory learner, keep in mind the following study suggestions:

• Listen to readings and lectures on CDs or online recordings (when available).
• Participate in discussions, ask questions, and repeat given information.
• Summarize or paraphrase written material and record the information.
• Discuss the material with someone else.

Visual learners

Visual learners need to see the big picture. They may choose a seat where they can see the whole stage or screen. They may like the back seat so everything is out in front and they can see it all. Visual learners survey the scene, like to sightsee, and can see the forest despite the trees.

Visual learners share the following characteristics:

• They need to see it to learn it; they must have a mental picture.
• They have artistic ability.
• They have difficulty with spoken directions.
• They find sounds distracting.
• They have trouble following lectures.
• They may misinterpret words.

If you’re a visual learner, follow these suggestions:

• Use visuals (graphics, films, slides, illustrations, doodles, charts, notes, and flashcards) to reinforce learning.
• Use multicolored highlighters or pens to organize your notes.
• Write down directions.
• Visualize words, phrases, and sentences to be memorized.
• Write everything down; review often.

Tactile learners

Tactile learners need to touch and feel things. They want to feel or experience the lesson themselves. Given a choice, strong tactile learners are right in the middle of the action. They tear things apart to see how they work and put them back together without the directions. Tactile learners immediately adjust the seat, mirror, radio, and temperature when they get in the car.

Here are some characteristics of tactile learners:

• They prefer hands-on learning or training.
• They can often put objects together without the directions.
• They have difficulty sitting still.
• They learn better when they can get involved.
• They may be coordinated and have athletic ability.

If you’re a tactile learner, try the following strategies:

• Make a model, do lab work, role-play, “be the ball.”
• Take frequent breaks.
• Copy letters and words to learn how to spell and remember facts.
• Use a computer to study as much as possible.
• Write facts and figures over and over.
• Read and walk, talk and walk, repeat and walk.

Staying motivated

Studying and learning can take you far in life, yet getting down to those tasks can be hard. Whether you’re studying for college or to advance your career, studying can be one of the most important things you should be doing. Modern life — whether commercials, the Internet, friends, or TV — continually demands your attention, and all these things can feel easier to attend to than study. So what can you do to stay motivated?

• Give your study the attention it deserves. If you were totally isolated, you’d study every last morsel of your subject until you were completely versed in it because nothing else would be there to distract you. Imagine being in a cell with no TV and nothing except ASVAB AFQT For Dummies. You’d certainly read it cover to cover — maybe many times! You’d know this book inside out because it’s all you’d have to do. Having too much choice over what you pay attention to means you need to exert willpower now more than ever to stay motivated.
• Think about your goals. Consider why you’re studying and what you’re studying for, because presumably it connects to what you want your life to be. All kinds of things may distract you when you’re not studying. But ask yourself whether you want your life to be about drinking coffee, playing computer games, watching TV, and chatting with friends. Do you have bigger fish to fry? Your life is about what you do with it, day in and day out.
• Feed and develop your mind. In today’s culture of entertainment, everything is supposed to be fun and exciting. If you buy into this idea too much, then you stop benefiting from subtle stimuli because they don’t immediately excite you. Your mind needs the rigor of study as well as the relaxation of entertainment. When you study well, you find it has its own pleasures and satisfactions above and beyond the good results it can bring into your life.

Managing your time

You may have all the time in the world, but if you don’t use it wisely, it won’t help you meet your goals. Procrastination is a problem for many people studying for the ASVAB or AFQT. The following tips can help you deal with this issue:

• Clear your schedule. Recognize that your obligations and the resulting stress are as important as other people’s needs. Set limits around being interrupted or rescheduling your work time to accommodate others. Omit or reschedule some of your other obligations. You want to give full concentration to your studies without feeling guilty about what you’re not doing.
• Create a work area that’s free from distractions and commit to staying there for at least one to two hours. If you get sidetracked, remind yourself how this activity will help you meet your goals.
• Prioritize. What has to be done first? What’s worth more in terms of your AFQT score? (Chapter 2 can help you with this decision.) What’s worth more in terms of your personal, educational, or career goals?
• Use a daily to-do list. This list helps you reach your goals and prioritize your daily tasks. As soon as you’ve completed a task, check it off your list. There are dozens of apps you can use to keep a to-do list, and your phone probably even came with one. (My favorite is Google Keep: https://keep.google.com.)
• Break down your study into chunks. Estimate how much time you need to complete the task. Don’t try to do it all at once. Break it down so it’s doable and not so overwhelming. Stay up-to-date to avoid overload.

• Recognize that you don’t have to be perfect. Some people are so afraid they won’t perform perfectly that they don’t do anything at all. Make sure you understand your goals. Then evaluate how important your study is and what level of performance is acceptable to you. Then just do it!

  If you score better than the 50th percentile on the AFQT, you become a very attractive candidate to the military. You don’t need a perfect score to get recruiters to chase you all over town.

• Make study enjoyable. Work on studying first, while you have more energy. Reward yourself when you check tasks off your daily to-do list.

You’re only human, so you probably gravitate toward studying the subject areas that you have an interest in or that you’re good at. If you’re an avid reader, don’t spend too much of your time studying reading comprehension. (You’re already likely to sail through that part of the test.) On the other hand, if you had a hard time in math in high school, you’ll want to spend extra time brushing up on your arithmetic skills.

Finding the right place to study

After you’ve found the time to study, commit to a time and place that meets your needs. Ask yourself whether the environment in which you’re studying will distract you or allow you to focus. Here are some aspects of the study environment you may need to consider:

• Time of day: Whenever possible, schedule your most challenging courses and most intense study sessions during the time of day when you’re most alert. Some people are at their best in the morning; others don’t get rolling until late afternoon. You know how you work, so plan to study when you can give it your best.
• Posture and mobility: Recognizing your posture and mobility needs helps you plan where and when you should study. Some people prefer to sit at a table or desk (in a formal posture) in order to concentrate and study effectively. Others are able to learn more easily while sitting comfortably on a sofa or lying on the floor (in an informal posture). Still others need to move about in order to learn; reading while walking on a treadmill may be appropriate for them. Some people can sit and study for long periods of time (they have high persistence), while others need to take frequent breaks (they have low persistence).

• Sound: Contrary to popular belief, not everyone needs to study in a perfectly quiet environment. If you do choose to study to music, choose Baroque classical music, such as compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi. The tempo and instrumentation of this music seem to be most compatible with study and learning.

  Several studies have shown that Baroque music, with 50 to 80 beats per minute, can lead students into deep concentration — the ideal state for studying vocabulary and memorizing facts. The energizing music of Mozart can help you focus when you’re sleepy and helps keep you alert, according to the Johns Hopkins School of Education.

• Lighting: Light does make a difference, so study in the environment that best matches your learning preferences. Studies have shown that some people become depressed because of light deprivation during the winter months. If you’re one of those people, try to study and spend as much time as possible in highly lit places.

  Other studies have shown reading ability can be affected by the light contrast between print and paper color. Black letters printed on white paper create a high contrast. Some people find they have a better time reading black print on blue or gray paper, which has less contrast and is easier on their eyes. (You can’t always choose the paper your study material is printed on, but you can choose it for note-taking and reviewing purposes.)

• Temperature: You may not be able to control the temperature of the room you’re in, but you should be aware of your preference for either a cool or warm environment. Dress in layers so you can adjust to differences in room temperatures. Study in the environments in which you feel most comfortable.

Setting goals

Setting goals is a good way to accomplish a particularly difficult task. Developing study skills is one such task that takes time and effort to master. By setting S.M.A.R.T. goals related to an area of your study skills that needs improvement, you’ll be studying like a pro in no time!

S.M.A.R.T. goals are

• Specific: After you decide what you want to work on, narrow it down to one thing. Be as specific as possible. Working out one problem at a time makes reaching your goal without spreading yourself too thin much easier. “I want to be a better reader” is too broad. Be more specific; for example, you may say, “I want to improve my reading speed.” Write down this specific goal.
• Measurable: Goals are only achievable if you can measure them in some way. For example, rather than “I want to improve my reading speed,” a measurable goal would be “I want to improve my reading speed by ten words per minute.”
• Actionable: This step is where you decide how you’re going to achieve your goal. Write this part as an “I will” statement. Following the example I give in the preceding bullet, your goal would now look something like “I want to improve my reading speed by ten words a minute. I will do this by skimming over words like the and an.”
• Realistic: Make sure your goals are within reach. “I will improve my reading speed by memorizing every word in the dictionary” isn’t reasonable for most people. Everyone has limits due to time, resources, or ability. Don’t ignore these restraints, or you’ll be setting yourself up to fail.
• Time sensitive: Set a date to accomplish the goal. Make sure this date is both specific and realistic for you. “I will meet this goal sometime over the summer” is vague. Try something more like “I will meet this goal by the first day of school next fall.” This wording gives you a definite time to shoot for and helps keep you working toward the goal. Goals can take only a few days to achieve; they may take months or years. Just be sure to make the timeline realistic for you and your lifestyle.

Arrive prepared

Your recruiter should brief you about what to expect and, in many cases, will even drive you to MEPS. In other cases, depending on how far you live from the closest MEPS (and whether you have a car), you may be provided with public transportation. In any case, you want to make sure you’re on time and ready:

• Eat a light meal before the test (breakfast or lunch, depending on the test time). You’ll be better able to think when you have some food in your stomach. However, don’t eat too much. You don’t want to be drowsy during the test. Also, don’t drink too much water. The test proctors will allow you to use the restroom if you need to, but with certain rules. If you leave to use the restroom during the paper version of the test, you can’t come back until the next subtest begins. You can’t leave to use the restroom during the computer version unless you’re between subtests, and you can only be absent for up to five minutes.
• If possible, arrange to arrive at the test site a little early, find a quiet place (such as your recruiter’s car), and do a ten-minute power-study to get your brain turned on and tuned up.
• Bring only the paperwork your recruiter gave you and a photo ID. Don’t bring a calculator, a backpack, or a sack full of munchies to the testing site. You won’t be allowed to have them with you. The same goes for your cellphone, although you can ask your recruiter to hold it for you.
• Keep in mind that MEPS is owned and operated by the military, so it doesn’t have much of a sense of humor when it comes to dress codes. Dress conservatively. Don’t wear clothes with holes in them or profanity written on them. The only people at MEPS who should see your underwear are the doctors during the physical exam. Leave your hat at home because, under the military civilian dress code, you can’t wear hats indoors.

Read the directions

Although this instruction may seem obvious, you can sometimes misread the directions when you’re in a hurry, and that won’t help you get the right answer. Each subtest has a paragraph or two describing what the subtest covers and giving instructions on how to answer the questions.

Understand the question

Take special care to read the questions correctly. Most questions ask something like, “Which of the following equals 6?” But sometimes a question may ask, “Which of the following does not equal 6?” You can easily skip right over the not when you’re reading and get the question wrong.

You also have to understand the terms being used. When a math problem asks you to find the product of two numbers, be sure you know what finding the product means. (It means you have to multiply the two numbers.) If you add the two numbers together, you arrive at the wrong answer (and that wrong answer, which happens to be the sum in this case, will likely be one of the answer choices).

Review all the answer options

Often, people read a question, decide on the answer, glance at the answer options, choose the option that agrees with their answer, mark the answer, and then move on.

Although this approach usually works, it can lead you astray. On the ASVAB, you’re usually supposed to choose the answer that’s “most correct.” Sometimes several answers are reasonably correct for the question at hand, but only one of them is “most correct.” If you don’t stop to read and review all the answers, you may not choose the one that’s “most correct.” Or, after reviewing all the answer options, you may realize that you hastily decided upon an incorrect answer because you misread it.

When in doubt, guess. On the paper ASVAB, guessing is okay. If you choose the correct answer, that’s the equivalent of +1 (or more, depending on how the question is weighted). If you don’t answer a question, that’s the equivalent of 0. If you guess on a question and get the question wrong, that’s also the equivalent of 0, not –1. (No penalties here!) But if you guess correctly, that’s +1 (or more).

If you’re taking the CAT-ASVAB, keep in mind that choosing answers randomly toward the end of your subtests increases the likelihood of a penalty. If time is running short, try to read and legitimately answer the questions instead of making random guesses for the remaining items. The CAT-ASVAB applies a relatively large penalty when you provide several incorrect answers toward the end of a subtest.

In each of the chapters on a particular subtest (Chapters 6, 8, 10, and 12), I give you hints for making educated guesses that are specific to that topic. But here are some general rules:

• Often, an answer that includes always, all, everyone, never, none, or no one is incorrect.
• If two choices are very similar in meaning, neither of them is probably the correct choice.
• If two answer options contradict each other, one of them is usually correct.
• The longer the answer, the better the chances that it’s the correct answer. The test makers have to get all those qualifiers in there to make sure it’s the correct answer and you can’t find an example to contradict it. If you see phrases like in many cases or frequently, that’s usually a clue that the test makers are trying to make the answer “most correct.”
• Don’t eliminate an answer based on how frequently it appears. For example, if Choice (B) has been the correct answer for the last five questions, don’t assume that it must be the wrong answer for the question you’re on just because that would make it six in a row.

• If all else fails, trust your instincts. Often, your first instinct is the correct answer.

  The Air Force Senior NCO Academy conducted an in-depth study of several Air Force multiple-choice test results taken over several years. It found that when students changed answers on their answer sheets, they changed from a right answer to a wrong answer more than 72 percent of the time! The students’ first instinct was usually the correct one.