Paragraph Comprehension gives you a short passage, often only a paragraph, and asks what it says, what it means or what follows from it. It has the fewest questions of the AFQT four and the most time per question after Arithmetic Reasoning.
Stated detail: a fact the passage gives in so many words.
Main idea: what the passage is mostly about, or the best title.
Inference: what the passage implies but does not state.
Words in context and purpose: what a word means here, or why the author wrote the passage.
Paragraph Comprehension in the session
GS12AR55WK9PC27MK31EI10AS13MC22AO18
0306090120150180197 min
Paragraph Comprehension, this page
the other subtests
With only 10 scored items and a long limit, there is time to read each passage properly; spend it there rather than on rereading the choices.
12 passage questions
0 of 12 answeredPick a letter: the reasoning for every choice opens under it.
Q1 of 12 · Paragraph Comprehension (PC)
Read the passage
Early military camouflage simply copied the colors of the landscape, painting helmets and trucks green or brown. During World War II, armies added disruptive patterns — irregular blotches that break up the outline of a soldier or vehicle so the eye cannot pick out its shape. Today's camouflage must also hide the heat of bodies and engines from thermal sensors, so new materials are designed to reflect heat in the same way as the ground around them.
According to the passage, disruptive patterns work by
The passage defines disruptive patterns as blotches that "break up the outline" of a soldier or vehicle so its shape is hard to see.
Keeping bodies cool is never mentioned; the newest materials hide heat from sensors rather than cooling anyone.
Reflecting heat like the ground is what today's thermal materials do, a later development than disruptive patterns.
Matching the land's colors describes early camouflage, the method that came before disruptive patterns.
The Global Positioning System was built by the U.S. military to guide ships, aircraft, and weapons. For years, the signal available to civilians was deliberately made less accurate, so that an enemy could not use it as well as American forces. In 2000 the government switched off this blurring. Almost overnight, car navigation units, farm equipment, and later smartphones could find their position to within a few yards.
It can be inferred from the passage that before 2000, civilian GPS devices
The blurring existed so that an enemy could not use the system as well as U.S. forces, so civilian sets worked worse, not better.
Farm equipment is one of several users named, and only after the change; nothing says civilian sets were built for it.
A less accurate signal still gives a position; the passage says it was blurred, not useless.
The civilian signal was "deliberately made less accurate" until 2000, so civilian devices gave less exact positions.
Most successful attacks on military computer networks do not begin with a clever piece of code. They begin with a person. An attacker sends an email that looks like it comes from a commander, and someone clicks the link inside. For this reason, every service member must complete cyber awareness training each year, learning to check the sender's address and report suspicious messages instead of opening them.
According to the passage, why must service members take cyber awareness training?
The training exists because networks can be protected when people check senders and report suspicious messages.
The passage says successful attacks usually "begin with a person" who clicks a link, which is why every member is trained.
The first sentence says the opposite: successful attacks do not begin with clever code.
Commanders are mentioned only because attackers fake their emails; the passage never says real commanders send too many.
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army medics found that many soldiers bled to death from limb wounds before reaching a hospital. They began giving every soldier a tourniquet and training them to apply it within minutes. Deaths from such wounds dropped sharply. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, police and emergency crews used the same method, and doctors credited it with saving several lives.
Which statement best expresses the main idea of the passage?
The passage says medics began issuing tourniquets in Iraq and Afghanistan, not that tourniquets were invented there.
The passage says police and crews used the same method, but it never says Army medics trained them.
The passage moves from Army medics' tourniquet lessons in war to the same method saving lives after the Boston bombing, so its main idea is that war medicine now helps civilians.
The passage discusses limb-wound deaths only; it makes no claim about the share of all war deaths.
Before each flight, aircraft mechanics follow a printed checklist line by line, even if they have inspected the same plane a hundred times. Some new mechanics find this tedious. Experienced crews know better. Most accidents blamed on maintenance trace back to a single skipped step — a cap left loose, a bolt not tightened. The checklist exists precisely because a confident expert is the one most likely to skip a line.
The author's attitude toward maintenance checklists is best described as
The author defends the checklist rather than questioning it.
The author sides with the experienced crews who "know better" and explains why the checklist matters, an approving attitude.
The passage takes a clear position, ending with the reason the checklist exists, so it is not neutral.
Some new mechanics find the checklist tedious, but the author does not share that view.
Fighting in a city is very different from fighting in open country. Buildings block the view and split units into small groups, so battles happen room by room at close range. Enemy fighters may wear ordinary clothes and blend in with thousands of civilians who could not or would not leave. Soldiers must decide in seconds whether the person in a doorway is a threat or a frightened resident.
According to the passage, a major difficulty of city fighting is that
Open country is the contrast the passage draws; city fighting is described as happening among buildings.
The passage says enemy fighters may wear ordinary clothes and blend in with civilians who did not leave.
The passage says many civilians "could not or would not leave," so they do not leave first.
City battles happen "room by room at close range," not at long range.
Before a unit deploys overseas, its soldiers spend several days learning about the country they are going to. They practice a few dozen phrases in the local language, such as greetings and "Stop" and "Thank you." Instructors explain customs that can cause offense, like showing the soles of one's shoes or refusing an offered cup of tea. Commanders say a single insult can turn a friendly village against the unit for months.
It can be inferred from the passage that the training is meant mainly to
The training prepares soldiers to deal politely with villagers, not to stay away from them.
Hot tea is a custom, not a climate; weather is never mentioned.
Soldiers learn only "a few dozen phrases," far short of fluency.
Avoiding insults that could turn a friendly village against the unit points to the training's main aim: keeping local goodwill.
Modern body armor uses hard ceramic plates that can stop rifle bullets, and it has saved thousands of soldiers from chest wounds. But a full set can weigh over thirty pounds. Soldiers wearing it tire faster, move more slowly when climbing or running, and suffer more back and knee injuries over a career. Engineers are testing lighter materials, but so far every lighter plate also stops fewer kinds of bullets.
According to the passage, the main drawback of current body armor is its
The ceramic material is what stops bullets; the drawback is how heavy it makes the set, and lighter materials so far protect less.
Fit is never mentioned in the passage.
Every problem listed — tiring faster, moving slowly, back and knee injuries — comes from the armor weighing over thirty pounds.
A platoon leader, usually a young lieutenant, receives the mission and decides what the platoon must do. The platoon sergeant, a non-commissioned officer with many years of service, turns those orders into action. He checks that every soldier has the right gear, trains the newest privates, and enforces standards day to day. Many lieutenants say their sergeants taught them more about leading soldiers than any classroom did.
According to the passage, what is the platoon sergeant's main job?
The passage says the platoon sergeant "turns those orders into action" by checking gear, training privates, and enforcing standards.
Lieutenants say sergeants taught them more than any classroom, but that teaching happens on the job, not in classes.
The lieutenant receives the mission and decides what the platoon must do; the sergeant carries it out rather than writing the orders.
Deciding the mission is the lieutenant's job in the passage.
In 1812, Napoleon marched more than 400,000 soldiers into Russia. The Russians retreated, burning crops as they went, and the French found little food. When winter came, the starving army collapsed; fewer than one in five soldiers returned. Military schools still teach this campaign, not to praise or blame Napoleon, but because the same mistake — outrunning one's supplies deep in hostile country — has been repeated by other armies since.
According to the passage, military schools teach Napoleon's Russian campaign mainly to
The last sentence says schools teach the campaign because the mistake of outrunning one's supplies "has been repeated by other armies since."
The dead are part of the story, but honoring them is not given as the reason the campaign is taught.
Winter is the setting of the collapse, not the lesson schools draw from it.
The passage says the campaign is taught "not to praise or blame Napoleon."
The Army's Future Combat Systems program tried to replace dozens of vehicles at once with an entirely new family of networked machines. After more than ten years and roughly $18 billion, it was canceled with few vehicles fielded. Meanwhile, the Stryker armored vehicle, upgraded one improvement at a time over two decades, stayed in service and steadily gained new weapons and armor. Many planners now prefer that slower path.
Based on the passage, many planners now prefer modernizing equipment
War and peace are never mentioned as conditions for modernizing.
Replacing everything in one leap is the approach that was canceled after ten years.
Cost appears only as the price of the failed program; the passage does not say planners choose the cheapest route.
The Stryker, upgraded "one improvement at a time," succeeded where the all-at-once program failed, and planners now prefer that slower path.
When a brigade plans an operation, the commander does not work alone. The intelligence officer predicts what the enemy will likely do. The operations officer sketches several ways to accomplish the mission. The logistics officer checks whether each option can be supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition. Only after hearing all three does the commander choose. The process is slow, but it catches problems no single officer would notice.
According to the passage, the planning process is worth its slowness because it
The commander chooses only after hearing all three officers; the point is that no one decides alone.
The logistics officer checks whether fuel and food can be supplied; the process does not use less of them.
The last sentence says the slow process "catches problems no single officer would notice."
The intelligence officer predicts what the enemy will "likely" do; the passage never claims the prediction is right.
Your tally shows here once every question above has an answer.
Reading traps on Paragraph Comprehension
Outside knowledge. The right answer is the one the passage supports, even if you know something truer or newer.
Extreme words. Choices with always, never, all or only usually claim more than a short passage can prove.
A true detail as the main idea. The main idea covers the whole passage; a correct detail from one sentence is a distractor.
Plausible, not supported. An inference has to follow from the text; a reasonable guess about the world does not count.
NOT and EXCEPT. One small word reverses the task; underline it on your scratch paper.
Verbal Expression, the score behind it
Paragraph Comprehension and Word Knowledge are combined into one Verbal Expression (VE) score, and VE is what enters the AFQT, the Army GT and several Air Force composites. That is why "VE" on a score report is a reading and vocabulary result together. How VE is used is on line scores.
Reading passages on the other tests
This page holds the site's reading passages. The same skill appears on: