What's a Good Score on the Asvab?

As I help habitancy study for the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test many ask me what would recite a good score on the Asvab or what the "high score" is on the test. What constitutes a good score unquestionably depends on each private test taker but, in my opinion, the actual total score matters very minuscule and concentrating on it can hurt you more than help you.

Here's why.

The purpose of the Asvab is not to measure your intelligence. The purpose is to measure your train-ability and, as the name of the test suggests, your aptitude in confident branch areas. Your forces training is essentially one big technical school designed to get ready you to accomplish a confident job. So, it should come as no surprise that the forces is very interested in having recruits make it straight through whatever training they get and become productive members of the armed forces.

That's what the Asvab test is designed to measure - your possible to be successfully trained for a confident job. Not your intelligence, education, or test taking abilities. By analyzing the Asvab test results of past recruits and their subsequent train-ability in a collection of job types, each forces branch has come up with their own minimum score measures for all of their jobs or job types.

Called "line scores", these minimum scores are calculated by adding confident Asvab subtest scores together and, after getting a good sufficient score on the Afqt measure of the Asvab to enlist (usually 30-40), it's these line scores that resolve for which training you'll be eligible. So, a good score on the Asvab is whatever composition of subtest scores add up to you earning training in the forces job of your choice.

As for high scores, technically the Asvab high score is 99 on each subtest but, as many forces veterans will tell you, if you need a 60 on a test and get a 99 then you studied too much! That 99 score may impress your recruiter and your parents but it doesn't mean much after you enlist.

The key to getting your own personal good score on the Asvab is to know which subtests make up the line score that qualifies you for the job training you want and to join your study on just those subtests (in expanding to the four subtests that make up the Afqt score). If you're going after a clerical job it makes no discrepancy what you get on the Electronics or Mechanical subtests so don't worry about them! As long as you get the line score you need it simply doesn't matter what you get on unrelated areas of the test.