ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension Practice Test 28307 Results

Your Results Global Average
Questions 5 5
Correct 0 3.03
Score 0% 61%

Review

1
The Doppler effect (or Doppler shift), named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who proposed it in 1842 in Prague, is the change in frequency of a wave (or other periodic event) for an observer moving relative to its source. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from an observer. The received frequency is higher (compared to the emitted frequency) during the approach, it is identical at the instant of passing by, and it is lower during the recession.
In this paragraph, what is "relative"?
44% Answer Correctly
The position of the observer compared to the source.
The speed of the observer compared to the source.
The hearing of the observer compared to the source.
The frequency of the observer compared to the source.

Solution
According to this passage, the Doppler effect is the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to the source of the wave. This indicates a difference in the movement and therefore the position of the observer and source.

2
Volunteer hosts went to the airport, picked up assigned students, fed them dinner, took them to the opening lecture at the Clay Center, put them in spare bedrooms for the night, then fed them breakfast this morning and will deliver the outstanding teens to buses that convey them to the mountain retreat where they undergo a month of intensive science training and outdoor fun.

Luckily, this year, enough local families volunteered to host all the brilliant youths. In the past, the number of guest homes sometimes fell short, and some of the visitors slept on cots and sleeping bags at local churches. They're adventurous teens and don't mind this makeshift camp-in but it's better if friendly hosts give them a more personal welcome for their stay.

Which of the following topics would the next paragraph in this passage most likely cover?
60% Answer Correctly
Instructions for how local families can volunteer to become hosts.
The story of a time when one of the students stole from his host family.
Instructions for how local families can enroll their children in a similar program.
An overview of what the student's science training will cover.

Solution
The author of this passage is painting a positive picture of the students and outlining their need for local host families. Although the next paragraph could be about the student's training, history of crime, or how local children can attend camps overseas the most likely next topic would be instructions for how local families can volunteer to become hosts.

3
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
The same text written in two different dialects of the language.
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.
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.

4
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." - Desiderius Erasmus
What does this proverb mean?
61% Answer Correctly
Someone who can see will be able to take advantage of others who cannot see.
Even someone with minor ability is considered special by those with no ability at all.
It is more advantageous to be able to see, even a little bit, than to be blind.
It would be easy for someone who can see to become king in a land of people who cannot see.

5
The Vikings were seafaring north Germanic people who raided, traded, explored, and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia, and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries. The Vikings employed wooden longships with wide, shallow-draft hulls, allowing navigation in rough seas or in shallow river waters. The ships could be landed on beaches, and their light weight enabled them to be hauled over portages. These versatile ships allowed the Vikings to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, and as far south as Nekor. This period of Viking expansion, known as the Viking Age, constitutes an important element of the medieval history of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, and the rest of Europe.
According to this passage, which of the following is not an advantage of longships?
73% Answer Correctly
They could be landed on beaches.
They could navigate in both seas and rivers.
They could hold many Viking warriors.
They were light in weight.