Paragraph Comprehension

The paragraph comprehension section asks you to read several short passages and answer one or more questions 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.

Question types

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.

Detail

Detail 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.

Some detail questions ask about order: what the author says to do first, or the second step in a process. Find the steps the question is about, and use signal words like first, then, next, after, and finally to keep them straight.

True or false

These are a straightforward version of detail questions. You’ll see four statements about the passage and choose the one the passage supports (or, if the stem says so, the one it doesn’t). Check each statement against the text, and watch for words like NOT or EXCEPT in the stem.

Vocabulary in context

These questions ask what a word or phrase means as it’s used in the passage. The surrounding sentence narrows the meaning, so look at how the word is used rather than relying on a dictionary definition you already know. The right answer can be substituted for the word in the sentence without changing its meaning.

A close relative of this question asks what the author means by a phrase. These phrases are often figurative, so they don’t mean exactly what the words say. If a writer says a new recruit “was thrown into the deep end,” the recruit didn’t land in a pool: the phrase means the recruit had to handle a hard job with no preparation. Read the sentences around the phrase, and pick the choice that explains what it says in this passage.

Author’s purpose and tone

Some questions ask why the author wrote the passage, or why the author included a particular detail or connected two ideas. Common purposes are to inform or explain, to persuade, to instruct, and to tell a story or describe a scene. A passage full of steps and commands is instructing; one that argues for a view is persuading.

Other questions ask how the author feels about the subject: the author’s tone or attitude. Look at word choice. Words like noble, proud, and admirable signal a positive attitude, and words like cruel, wasteful, and foolish a negative one. Pick the choice that matches the strength of the author’s words, not a stronger one.

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 $4$ 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 cover more ground than the passage’s actual focus, even though they loosely relate to the topic.

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).

Not supported by the passage
Some wrong answers sound reasonable, or are even true in real life, but the passage never says or suggests them. Answer from the passage, not from your own opinions or outside knowledge.

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

Keep this in mind too: the CAT-ASVAB won’t let you skip a question and come back to it later, so settle on your best answer using these trap patterns and move on rather than planning to revisit it.

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.

Partially incorrect

Elizabeth’s father married for youth and beauty, and he and his wife grew closer over time

The first half of this matches the passage, but the second half contradicts it - the passage says the marriage “put an end to all real affection” between them. Because one part is wrong, the whole answer choice is wrong.

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 covers more ground than the passage’s actual focus, 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.

Not supported by the passage

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

This might feel like a reasonable takeaway, but the passage never says it. It’s a general lesson a reader might draw from real life, not something the passage states or suggests about Elizabeth and her parents’ marriage.

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.

Other questions on the same passage

The same passage can answer the other question types too.

Inference: What does the passage suggest about where Elizabeth’s view of marriage comes from? It says she could not have formed a pleasing picture of marriage had her opinion come only from her own family. That suggests her opinion doesn’t come only from her family: other examples give her a better picture than her parents do.

Vocabulary in context: What does “conjugal felicity” mean in this passage? The sentence pairs it with “domestic comfort” and then describes a marriage, so it means happiness in marriage.

Detail: According to the passage, what ended the real affection between Elizabeth’s parents? The passage says it was her mother’s “weak understanding and illiberal mind,” and that it happened very early in the marriage.