Читать книгу 2022 / 2023 ASVAB For Dummies - Angie Papple Johnston - Страница 27

In 1948, Congress made the Department of Defense develop a uniform screening test to be used by all the services. The Defense Department came up with the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT). This test consisted of 100 multiple-choice questions in areas such as math, vocabulary, spatial relations, and mechanical ability. The military used this test until the mid-1970s. Each branch of the service set its own minimum qualification (AFQT) score.

When the military decides to do something, it often acts with the lightning speed of a snail carrying a backpack. So in the 1960s, the Department of Defense decided to develop a standardized military selection and classification test and to administer it in high schools. That’s where your old buddy, the ASVAB, came from. The first ASVAB test was given in 1968, but the military didn’t use it for recruiting purposes for several years. In 1973, the draft ended and the nation entered the contemporary period in which all military recruits are volunteers. In 1976, the ASVAB became the official entry test used by all services.

The ASVAB remained unchanged until 1980, when it underwent its first revision. The subtest areas remained the same, but several of the questions were updated to keep up with changes in technology.

In 1993, the computerized version was released for limited operational testing, but it didn’t begin to see wide-scale use until 1996. The questions on the computerized version of the ASVAB were identical to the questions on the paper version. It wasn’t until the end of 2002 that the ASVAB finally underwent a major revision. Two subtests (Coding Speed and Numerical Operations) were eliminated, and a new subtest (Assembling Objects) was added to the computerized version. Also during the 2002 revision, all the questions were updated, and the order of the subtests was changed. The revised ASVAB was first rolled out in the computerized format, and the paper versions of the test were updated during the next year. The most recent update occurred in 2008. The ASVAB was revised to better sync the line scores with the applicants’ qualified jobs.

For the Marine Corps, the retest can’t be requested solely because the applicant’s initial test scores didn’t meet the standards prescribed for enlistment options or programs.