ASVAB Word Knowledge and Paragraph Comprehension Practice Questions

D: The professor wants to appear erudite even when he doesn’t know much about a subject. You can predict from the context that erudite means “learned.” Choice (D) scholarly means “learned” and is the correct answer. Civil, progressive, and amoral don’t relate to knowing a lot about a certain subject.

C: Because she finished the race even though she was in pain, you know she was pretty tough. This aligns with her showing (C) courage. If anything, a sore foot implies that she ran more slowly than usual, so speed doesn’t fit. You don’t know whether she showed (B) cheerfulness or was gritting her teeth with every step. Choice (D) vulnerability, or “weakness,” is the opposite of what you need here.

B: The root word negate within abnegate means “to deny the existence of something.” The prefix ab– means “away from,” so to abnegate means “to turn one’s back on or reject.” This makes choice (B), deny, the correct answer.

C: This Detail question asks you for the first person to conquer Mount Everest. Researching the passage, you must be careful not to assume that the mountain is named for its conqueror. While Sir George Everest, (A), first documented and recorded the height of Everest in 1865, it was (C) Sir Edmund Hillary who completed the first ascent to the peak in 1953. The question does not ask for the first woman, or the first American woman, to reach the summit, so (B) Junko Tabei and (D) Stacy Allison are out. The correct answer is (C).

C: The question asks for an inference that can be drawn from the passage but provides no clues about the nature of the inference. Each answer choice must be compared with the information given to identify the one choice that must be true based on the passage. The correct answer is supported by the fifth sentence, “One lasting result was an increase in pay for doctors, encouraging many to enter the profession.” If many people were encouraged to become doctors because of higher pay, we can infer that lower pay before World War I was a deterrent to entering the profession. The word “lasting” implies that higher pay is still motivating more people to become doctors today. Choice (A) is extreme; even though the flu brought about advances, you cannot infer that advances would not have happened anyway. Choice (B) is unsupported by any facts presented. Choice (D) distorts the facts given. Doctors were encouraged by higher pay, not drafted. Also, there is no evidence that medical care was overwhelmed by the unprecedented numbers of patients. In fact, the patients caused a “boom” in the field.