ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension Practice Test 282808 Results

Your Results Global Average
Questions 5 5
Correct 0 2.98
Score 0% 60%

Review

1
The Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures Department routinely conducts price verification inspections at retail locations to confirm that prices charged to consumers are the same as those posted or advertised. On a typical visit to a store, the inspector will select up to 15 items and then take them to the check stand for payment. When the items’ bar codes are scanned at the register, the price showing at the register must match what is posted on the shelf or advertised. If the prices do not match, the store will receive a notice of violation and the case may be turned over to the District Attorney’s Office or local city attorney for prosecution.
According to this passage:
77% Answer Correctly
An item costing less than the announced price will no t be considered a violation.
Price violation cases are automatically turned over to the appropriate jurisdiction’s attorney office.
A store receives a violation when the shelf or advertised price does not match the charged price.
An inspector will usually find a pricing error when 15 items are being purchased.

Solution
The passage states that a store will receive a violation if the price showing at the register does not "match what is posted on the shelf or advertised."

2
Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution.
Based on this passage, which of the following statements is false?
47% Answer Correctly
An organism that is endemic to Australia can be found in India.
An organism that is indigenous to Australia can be found in India.
An organism that is endemic cannot have a cosmopolitan distribution.
Endemism requires an organism be unique to a defined geographic location.

Solution
You don't necessarily need to know the definitions of the words in a paragraph to figure out the correct answer. Just go through the answers one by one and logically compare the answer to the the paragraph and eliminate the answers that aren't supported by the facts.

3
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?
64% Answer Correctly
Both sports feature passing.
Goals are scored by throwing the ball into a net defended by a goalie.
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.

4
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
An ancient text written in the language.
Two editions of the same text written one-hundred years apart.
Old folk songs that have been passed down among generations of speakers of the language.
The same text written in two different dialects of 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.

5
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
hopeful
denying
confident
skeptical

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".