Paragraph Comprehension

The paragraph comprehension section asks you to read several short passages and answer one question about each passage. The passages cover a range of writing styles, but they’re typically between $2$ and $4$ sentences long.

Before you answer, pay close attention to the question itself. Different question types require different reading approaches.

Here are the question types you’ll see.

Question types

Because there are many different types of questions in the paragraph comprehension section, your first step is to identify the question type.

Main idea

The main idea is the passage’s overall point. If someone asked what you just read, what would you say it was mainly about?

You might see main idea questions phrased as:

What is the main idea of the passage?
What is the author trying to say?
What is the central idea of the paragraph?

Inference

Inference questions ask you to draw a conclusion that the passage suggests but doesn’t state directly. You’ll base your inference on clues such as:

• The overall topic
• The author’s tone
• Word choice and phrasing
• Relationships between ideas in the text

You can use general knowledge and logic, but your answer still has to match what the passage supports. If an inference isn’t supported by the text, it’s not a good choice.

Detailed questions

Detailed questions ask about one specific piece of information in the passage. In many ways, they’re the opposite of main idea questions.

For detail questions, the question stem matters a lot. If you know what detail you’re looking for, you can read with that target in mind instead of rereading the passage to hunt for it.

True or false

These questions are a straightforward version of detail questions. You’ll be given a statement about the passage and asked to decide whether it’s true or false based on what the passage says.

Strategy

Now that you’ve identified the different question types, let’s talk about strategy.

Start with the question stem

Start by reading the question stem before you read the passage. The stem tells you what you’re supposed to find or do.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s easy to miss key information and then waste time rereading. When you start with the question, you can read more deliberately and pay extra attention to the parts of the passage that matter for that specific task.

Come up with your own answer

After you read the question stem and then read the passage, pause before you look at the answer choices and come up with your own answer.

For example:

• If the question asks for the main idea, try summarizing the passage in one sentence.
• If it’s a vocabulary-in-context question, think of a word or phrase you could substitute for the word in question.

Taking a moment to form your own answer makes it harder for tempting-but-wrong options to pull you off track. You’ll have a clear target in mind and can eliminate choices that don’t match it.

Eliminating answer options

All questions on the ASVAB are multiple choice with $2$ or $4$ options. Only one option will be fully supported by the passage, and the others will be wrong.

This matters especially in reading, where it can feel like more than one answer “could” work. On the test, though, only one answer will be clearly correct based on the passage.

At the same time, the wrong answers are designed to sound plausible.

So how do you decide which one to choose?

A good first step is to watch for common trap patterns. To make sure that $3$ answer choices are wrong (but still related to the passage), test writers often build incorrect options in a few predictable ways:

Partially incorrect
Some answer options have multiple parts. Often, one part is correct and another part is wrong. Because there is only one correct answer, “partly right” isn’t enough. If even one part of an answer choice is wrong, the entire choice is wrong and you should eliminate it.

Too specific
Some wrong answers focus on a detail that appears in the passage but ignore the larger point. This is especially common in main idea questions. A too-specific option can feel familiar because it matches a line from the text, but it doesn’t capture what the passage is mostly about.

Too general
Some wrong answers are too broad or vague. They may loosely relate to the topic, but they go beyond what the passage actually says or implies.

Too extreme
Some wrong answers use language that’s stronger than the passage supports. Watch for words like always and never. Extreme wording is often a sign that the option goes too far.

Irrelevant to the question
Some options include details that may be true according to the passage but don’t answer the question being asked. For instance, if the question asks about a specific detail, don’t choose an option that states the main idea (and vice versa).

Inverted
Some wrong answers reverse a relationship in the passage, such as cause and effect or before and after.

Example

Let’s look at an example of these trap categories using the following passage:

“Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her.”

What is the main idea of this passage?

Take a moment and write down what you think it is. Then we’ll look at what wrong answers might look like. The spoiler contains the correct main idea.

Too specific

The reason Elizabeth’s father married a woman was that she was young and beautiful

This answer choice is tempting because the passage directly says her father was “captivated by [her] youth and beauty.” But that detail isn’t the main point. It’s one example that helps explain why her parents are poorly matched and why their marriage doesn’t provide a positive model. Because it focuses on a single detail, it’s too specific.

Too general

Getting married can be tricky because people don’t always know each other well enough beforehand

This answer choice relates to the topic of marriage, but it doesn’t match the passage’s focus. The passage isn’t about marriage in general. It’s about Elizabeth’s view of marriage based on her parents’ relationship. Because it’s broad and vague, it’s too general.

Too extreme

Elizabeth believes all marriages are doomed to fail

This option exaggerates what the passage says. The passage suggests that Elizabeth would have a bleak view of marriage if she based her opinion only on her family. It doesn’t say she believes all marriages fail. The wording is stronger than the text supports, so it’s too extreme.

Irrelevant to the question

People should choose a romantic partner because of their personality, not their appearance

This might feel like a reasonable takeaway, but it isn’t the main idea of the passage. Main idea answers should describe what the passage is mainly saying about Elizabeth and her parents’ marriage, not a general moral lesson you might draw from it.

Inverted

Because Elizabeth is skeptical about marriage, she thinks that her father made a poor choice for a wife

This reverses the relationship in the passage. The passage suggests the opposite direction: Elizabeth’s negative example (her parents’ poor match) would lead her to a bleak view of marriage. This answer flips cause and effect, so it’s inverted.