ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension Practice Test 114499 Results

Your Results Global Average
Questions 5 5
Correct 0 3.26
Score 0% 65%

Review

1
On Monday, after a long quarter-century, West Virginians said goodbye to their state's 6 percent food tax. Now to see what, if any, business we've been missing. In 1989, retailers warned that sales in West Virginia would go down if legislators imposed a 6 percent tax on food. "Whatever they put on would be passed on to the consumer," Charles Forth, who owned supermarkets in both West Virginia and Ohio, told the newspaper in February 1989. "Six percent is $6 on $100. That will make a difference when people are already hurting and trying to make ends meet." It's a lot easier to drive customers away than to win them back, a fact legislators should bear in mind when it comes to taxation.
The author is _______________ that eliminating the 6 percent food tax will bring customers back to West Virginia stores.
45% Answer Correctly
skeptical
confident
hopeful
denying

Solution
The author cites a local retailer who predicted that sales in West Virginia would go down if the food tax was implemented and, although no facts are given to indicate that sales did in fact go down, the tone of the paragraph implies that the perception is that they have. The author is skeptical that eliminating the food tax will bring customers back claiming "It's a lot easier to drive customers away than to win them back".

2
Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and gas). Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms (reducing or increasing the number of electrons in them), thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions.
What does the word "state" most closely mean in the context of this paragraph?
73% Answer Correctly
condition
form
category
territory

Solution
Although each of these words are synonyms for "state", form is the most appropriate given the context of this paragraph.

3
A utility cooperative is a type of cooperative that is tasked with the delivery of a public utility such as electricity, water or telecommunications to its members. Profits are either reinvested for infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of "patronage" or "capital credits", which are essentially dividends paid on a member's investment into the cooperative. Each customer is a member and owner of the business with an equal say as every other member of the cooperative, unlike investor-owned utilities where the amount of say is governed by the number of shares held.
A utility cooperative is most similar to which of the following types of organizations?
77% Answer Correctly
a dictatorship
a military organization
a monarchy
a partnership

Solution
Similar to a partnership, in a utility cooperative the members have a say in how the cooperative is run. In the other types of organizations all members do not share in the decision making.

4
Water polo, or water ball, is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores the most goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water (using a sort of kicking motion known as "eggbeater kick"), players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing the ball into a net defended by a goalie. "Man-up" (or "power play") situations occur frequently. Water polo, therefore, has strong similarities to the land-based game of team handball.
Which of the following is not a similarity between water polo and team handball?
65% Answer Correctly
Goals are scored by throwing the ball into a net defended by a goalie.
Both sports feature passing.
Power play situations occur frequently.
Both sports feature the "eggbeater kick".

Solution
The "eggbeater kick" is used in water polo when treading water. Treading water would not be necessary in the land-based game of team handball.

5
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal development of a single language over time.
Which of the following would be the most useful for someone using the comparative method in linguistics when studying a particular language?
66% Answer Correctly
Old folk songs that have been passed down among generations of speakers of the language.
Two editions of the same text written one-hundred years apart.
The same text written in two different dialects of the language.
An ancient text written in the language.

Solution
The wrong answers all provide insight into how a single language has changed over time while the text written in two different dialects offers an opportunity to compare languages that share a common ancestor.