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(More customer reviews)I know how important it is to find a "good review" especially for a book that could help shape your military career, which is precisely why I decided to take the time to write about my CAT-ASVAB experience after reading two study books, taking numerous practice exams, and then re-reading the study books all over again.
First, some of you might be wondering what score I made (I know I would be too). I got a 95%, qualifying me for virtually every program in the military. My best sections were Mathematics Knowledge, Paragraph Comprehension, Electronics Information, and tied for fourth were General Science, Arithmetic Reasoning, Mechanical Comprehension, Assembling Objects, and Word Knowledge. In all of these sections I scored higher than 60. Now that we've established my credibility for this particular subject, let us move on to the review of the study material(s) themselves, and to what extent they helped in preparing me for the exam.
The two books I read were "Master The ASVAB: by Scott A Ostrow, Therese DeAngelis" and "McGraw-Hill's ASVAB, Second Edition" (book titles should always be underlined, but not sure how to do that at the moment). My favorite of the two was "Master the ASVAB: by Scott A Ostrow" because I felt the practice exams were more difficult especially since they are timed. The practice exams for McGraw-Hill's ASVAB were pretty good too, but they just didn't quite feel like the real thing since the tests were not timed. Both books were comprehensive, sparing no expense in covering everything that could (emphasis added) show up on the ASVAB. I'm going to re-emphasize the word "could" because it is likely that 90% of the material won't.
I know this might sound like good news to those of you looking for an advantage, but, the truth is, most of the questions I saw on the exam were not directly covered in the study books. For the mathematically-minded, I will quantify the word "most". By "most" I mean 75-80% of the questions on the exam will not directly be covered in these study books I've listed.
This may sound like a bummer to some and good news to those whom subscribe to the notion that you can't study for this exam, but there is some silver lining here if you continue reading. What the study materials do well is familiarize you with general content and subjects, which will enable you to be a "better guesser". There were a lot of questions, for example, in the General Science section that I guessed on, but I've confident I probably got most of them right since I was able to eliminate choices that were obviously incorrect, thanks to my trusty ASVAB study companions.
Furthermore, I think both books do a tremendous job familiarizing you with the type of Mathematics questions you could see as well as Arithmetic Reasoning, Mechanical Comprehension, and Electronics Information. Keep in mind though, that if you are taking the CAT-ASVAB, everyone's questions could be potentially different. In my Math section, I had Logarithm questions, while other military candidates did not (Thank God I took College Algebra recently before I took the test!) These sections combined make up the 20-25% of the exam which are covered directly in the ASVAB study companions.
To conclude, if I had to go through it all over again, I would not change how I prepared for the exam. Probably the most important element to test-taking (also known as the "X-factor) is Confidence. If you don't have confidence going into an exam, you are likely to second-guess yourself every step of the way. Confidence is probably the greatest gift these books could give since you should already have a good idea of the format of the exam, as well as questions that could (emphasis added for the last time) show up.
Don't listen to all the idiots that are trying to convince you NOT to study for the exam. In today's education system, where public schools are as wry as Fox News, you can't afford to take your chances especially with something as important as deciding what job you're going to be doing in the Military.
If you've made it this far in my review, it tells me you really care about your future. Just remember one thing, Study your a** off so only You can decide what job your a** will be doing for the next 4-6 years, and not the drones down in MEPS. Trust me, they are not your friends, and I'm not either. Which is precisely why I'm telling you to study as much as you can so that you don't need any friends and you can do whatever the H** you want to do in the Military.
Good luck and Happy Test Taking,,,
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