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ASVAB Exam Reading Comprehension Questions
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Paragraph (Reading) Comprehension sections in any exam wants to test whether you can understand what you've read so you can implement it or pass it on to others. To do well on Paragraph Comprehension, you need to have strong reading comprehension skills. You also have to be able to draw your own conclusions from what you've read. In the ASVAB exams, you'll have 22 minutes to answer 11 Paragraph Comprehension questions on the computerized ASVAB or 13 minutes to answer 15 questions on the paper version.  The questions on the Paragraph Comprehension tests ask you to: Find specific... Show more
ASVAB Exam Reading Comprehension Questions
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1. Education is compulsory. This concluding requirement of the regulations exists in the laws of public instruction of almost all nations. Nevertheless, in its application, the governments pay attention to the social circumstances of the country. In our country parents incur a fine who do not send their children to school, the fine being from one-half to two reals, according to circumstances.
After reading this passage, you can assume that
2. He lived simply, but had apparently enough money to allow his daughters the privileges of gentlewomen, and they went to all the dances and balls in the neighborhood, and paid frequent visits to their brothers' houses for weeks at a time.
From this passage, it's safe to assume that
3. Thiobenzophenone is an organosulfur compound; it is the prototypical thioketone. However, thiobenzophenone doesn't dimerize to form rings and polymers like most other thioketones do; it's actually very stable, despite the fact that it photoxidizes in air and forms sulfur and benzophenone.
From the passage, you can assume that
4. In 1987 director Oliver Stone created Wall Street, a film that critiques the mindset of many high-stake players in the financial world: players who embrace a value system that places profits and wealth, 'doing the deal,' and winning above all other considerations. In 2010 Stone released Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which further develops and updates his indictment of self-centered, predatory trading practices that can take the entire world to the brink of a complete economic meltdown.
According to the films described in this passage, what can happen as a result of the actions of Wall Street's high-stake players?
5. Lillie sat on the floor in front of the grate, her chin on her hands, her eyes fixed on the bright fire. Frank was watching the door, in a very unnatural sort of quietness for a boy, with Tan curled up at his feet; and Jennie was nervously tearing off the corners of her book, since it had grown too dark to read it, thinking that Miss Lane was a very long time in taking off her cloak.
Based on this passage, you can assume that
6. Do you want to know why Florence Nightingale was the one person out of all the people of England to be asked to go? From her earliest childhood she was always doing what she could to help those who were in trouble. The poor and suffering appealed to her more than to most people. When quite young, she went to visit the poor and sick on her father's estates, carrying to them some little dainties or flowers that they would be sure to like, and helping them to get well. All the animals around her home liked her, because they knew that she would not hurt them; even the shy squirrels would come quite close to her and pick up the nuts she dropped for them.
The main theme of this passage is
7. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.
This passage describes a person who
8. Abraham Lincoln's youthful love of learning freed him from his father's fate as a poor farmer and led him to a successful legal and political career. Although Lincoln had only one year of grade school education, his intellectual curiosity led him to read intensively – the Bible, Shakespeare, the law, and Euclid's geometry.
According to the passage, Abraham Lincoln didn't have to become a poor farmer like his father because
9. It was a long house, not very high, yet containing some good-sized bedrooms on the upper story, and rooms below calculated for the entertainment of a much greater company than ever appeared now upon the deserted highroad. It had been an old coaching road, and there were stables at the Seven Thorns which could take in half the horses in the county; but that, of course, was all over now. The greater part of these stables were shut up and falling into decay. So was the large dining room and half of the extensive accommodation downstairs. The great kitchen, and a little room on the other side of the doorway, which was called the parlour, were all that was ever wanted now in the Seven Thorns.
From this passage, you can infer that
10. As a boy, I travelled the greater part of the United Kingdom, when, reaching twelve, my aptitude for trading in horses (thanks to my father's tuition) began to exhibit itself. My first business transaction consisted of receiving a present of a pony. One day, shortly after the Epping Fair of 1842, I was sent by my parents to the Manor House at Loughton, with some basket-ware. Being some distance from our camp, one of the upper servants very kindly attended to my inward wants, and having packed the silver for the ware, for safety, in a piece of brown paper, in my breeches pocket, I started off for the forest.
According to the passage,
11. Henry IV, who insisted that every peasant should have a fowl in his pot, was often referred to as 'Good King Henry.' He ruled France from 1589 to 1610, and during that time, he was the target of at least one dozen assassination attempts. He became more popular after his death and was remembered for his uncommon concern for his subjects' welfare.
You can infer from the passage that
12. Amongst the other gods, we sometimes see allusions to their particular power and honours, and to the quarrels that derive from them: Athene, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, and Hera take part in the battle at Troy, though Zeus strictly forbids it.
According to the passage,
13. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.
The author of this passage would probably agree that
14. By some mistake it hasn't rained all day, so we took the opportunity to get on with painting the train. We worked all the morning and afternoon and got a lot done. It looks very smart with huge red crosses on white squares in the middle of each coach and the number of the ward in figures a foot long at each end, this on both sides of the coaches. We have done not quite half the coaches and are praying that it won't rain before it dries. If it does, the result is pitiable.
The speaker in this passage is most likely talking about
15. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.
It's reasonable to assume that the person in this passage
16. And this is Christmas, and the world is supposed to be civilised. They came in from the trenches to-day with blue faces and chattering teeth, and it was all one could do to get them warm and fed. By this evening they were most of them revived enough to enjoy Xmas cards; there were such a nice lot that they were able to choose them to send to Mother and My Young Lady and the Missis and the Children, and have one for themselves.
You can assume that this passage takes place
17. Antimatter comets have never been observed by scientists, and they're unlikely to exist anywhere in the Milky Way Galaxy. In the 1940s, Vladimir Rojansky hypothesized that antimatter comets would generate volatile compounds, and using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, that he could determine their existence by observing comets' temperatures. Because of great technological advancement, which has fostered many new discoveries and theories, scientists today believe that antimatter comets are unlikely to exist at all.
The author of this passage would probably agree that
18. Humanity is susceptible to many diseases. Some are endemic (always present in a population), and some sweep rapidly through widespread populations as epidemics. Only in the last century or so — when diseases were well-enough understood by science — have large-scale disease-eradication programs been implemented.
According to the passage, endemic diseases are
19. Completed in 1937 after more than a decade of hard work, the Appalachian Trail is currently maintained by 31 trail clubs and several partnerships. The National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy manage the trail, and it's the longest hiking-only trail in the world. Approximately 2 million people hike the Appalachian Trail every year.
According to the passage,
20. Magnolia is one of the best-known trees in the eastern part of the state. No other tree excels it in the combined beauty of leaves and flowers. Occurring naturally in rich moist soil on the borders of river swamps and nearby uplands in the Coastal Plain to the valley of the Brazos River, it has been widely cultivated for its ornamental value.
According to the passage, magnolia trees are cultivated because they are
21. Bilberry goats are completely feral, but their herd is led by a dominant nanny. The species looks unlike any other found in the United Kingdom because each goat has a shaggy coat and large horns. These goats are nearing extinction; there are only about 50 of them living in the wild.
According to the passage, what is different about Bilberry goats?
22. Today we accord movie star status to many of our leaders. Some of them become cultural icons and cultural role models. For example, the president of the United States is, arguably, the most photographed person in the world.
According to this passage, we view many of our leaders as
23. Power is about control. To have power is to possess the capacity to control change or to direct it. Power need not be coercive, dictatorial, or punitive. It can be used in a non-coercive manner, for instance to orchestrate, mobilize, direct, and guide members of an institution or organization in the pursuit of a goal or series of objectives.
The author of this passage would probably agree that
24. When he first set foot in Virginia, Captain John Smith was only twenty-seven years old; but even then he had made himself somewhat famous in England as a daring traveler in Southern Europe, in Turkey and the East. This extremely vivid and resolute man comes before us for study, not because he was the most conspicuous person in the first successful American colony, but because he was the writer of the first book in American literature.
According to the passage, Captain John Smith
25. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.
According to the passage, the illness the author does not have is

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