ASVAB — All Questions

A shop that buys the cheapest available drill bit will buy it again in three weeks, and again after that, and will pay besides for the holes it wandered out of true. The purchasing clerk's report shows a saving on every line. What the report does not show is the hour a machinist spends drilling those holes over, which lands in a different column and is charged to somebody else. The writer's attitude toward the shop's purchasing practice is best described as:

• a.critical of a false economy✓
• b.neutral on the trade-off
• c.amused by the clerk's mistake
• d.alarmed at an unsafe habit

The criticism is in the piling up: buy it again 'in three weeks, and again after that,' then the cost that 'lands in a different column.' The target is the accounting, not any person, so treating it as a clerk's blunder misreads it, and nothing in the passage raises a question of safety.

A forklift's rated capacity assumes the load's center of gravity sits a set distance ahead of the forks, usually twenty-four inches. The truck balances on its front axle, with the load on one side and the truck's own weight on the other. A pallet of the same weight but twice as deep puts its center farther out, and the rated capacity no longer applies to it. It can be inferred from the passage that lifting a deeper pallet of the rated weight would:

• a.raise the rated capacity of the forklift
• b.cut the margin against tipping over✓
• c.leave the truck's balance unaffected
• d.call for a longer pair of fork blades

The passage describes a balance on the front axle with load on one side, and says a deeper pallet puts its center 'farther out,' which is why the rating stops applying. Farther out on the load side means less to spare. Longer forks answer a support problem the passage never connects to capacity.

Before a timber goes into a bridge deck it is tapped along its length with a hammer. A sound piece answers with a sharp ring. A piece with rot or a hidden split answers dull, because the flaw interrupts the path the vibration would travel. The dull ones are set aside no matter how good the outside surface looks. In this passage, 'sound' most nearly means:

• a.sensible and practical
• b.loud enough to hear
• c.free of hidden defect✓
• d.able to carry a tone

The contrast makes the meaning: a sound piece rings, while one with 'rot or a hidden split' answers dull and is set aside. The word names the timber's condition, not the noise. Carrying a tone borrows from the sentence about vibration, and sensible is the everyday sense as in sound advice.

A heater burning fuel without enough air produces carbon monoxide, a gas with no color and no smell. Breathed in, it binds to the same sites on the blood cells that carry oxygen, and it binds to them far more readily than oxygen does. The blood keeps circulating, but it carries less oxygen with every pass. The early signs, headache and confusion, are easy to blame on something else. According to the passage, carbon monoxide harms a person by:

• a.slowing the beating of the heart muscle
• b.burning away the lining of the airways
• c.taking the sites oxygen would occupy✓
• d.using up the oxygen in the room air

The mechanism is inside the blood: the gas 'binds to the same sites on the blood cells that carry oxygen,' and more readily than oxygen does, so less oxygen moves with each pass. Using up room air is the tempting swap, confusing what the heater's flame does with what the gas does once breathed.

A portable extinguisher is checked once a month. The inspector confirms that it hangs in its assigned place, that the seal and pin are intact, that the gauge needle stands in the green band, and that the nameplate is legible. He records the date and his initials on the tag. Anything failing one of these checks goes to the service contractor, and a spare takes its place on the bracket. The tone of the passage is best described as:

• a.cautionary and alarmed
• b.plain and matter-of-fact✓
• c.admiring of the procedure
• d.impatient with the routine

Every verb is flat and procedural: the inspector 'confirms,' 'records,' and a failed unit 'goes to the service contractor.' Nothing warns of consequence and nothing praises the routine. Reading it as cautionary imports an alarm the wording never supplies, which is the usual way a tone item is missed.

The Pony Express carried mail across the western territories in ten days, a speed no stagecoach could match, and it did so for eighteen months. Two days after the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, the company announced that the service would stop. Its riders and relay stations had always cost far more than the postage ever brought in. What the company had really been selling was time. It can be inferred from the passage that the service ended when it did because:

• a.what it sold could now be had faster✓
• b.the stage lines had finally driven it out
• c.its costs had finally caught up with it
• d.its riders would not work for the pay

Two facts sit side by side: the announcement came 'two days after' the telegraph was finished, and what the company sold 'was time.' The telegraph moved a message faster, so the product was gone. Cost is the trap, since the passage says the losses had 'always' been there and so cannot explain the timing.

A cook who wants a thicker, more concentrated sauce will reduce it. The pan is left uncovered over steady heat and the water in the sauce leaves as steam. Nothing is added. What remains is the same flavor in a smaller volume, which is why a reduced sauce tastes sharper and why salt should be judged at the end of the process rather than at the beginning. As used in the passage, 'reduce' most nearly means:

• a.lower the price charged
• b.simmer away the water✓
• c.cut into smaller parts
• d.weaken it by adding water

The passage spells the process out: the pan stays uncovered, 'the water in the sauce leaves as steam,' and 'nothing is added.' That last clause rules out diluting. The familiar senses of making something less or cheaper point the wrong way here, because the volume falls while the flavor grows stronger.

Evidence taken from a scene is sealed in a bag, and the label carries the collector's name, the date and the time. Everyone who handles the bag afterward signs the label and records when it passed to them. Opening the bag for testing is allowed, so long as whoever opens it reseals the bag and signs across the new seal. What a court will not accept is a stretch of time with no signature for it, because at that point nobody can say where the bag was. According to the passage, a court refuses the evidence when:

• a.the test uses up part of what was collected
• b.the bag passes through several hands
• c.a stretch of time carries no signature✓
• d.the bag is opened for laboratory testing

The passage names one failure and only one: a span of time with no signature for it, after which nobody can say where the bag was. Opening the bag for a test is allowed when the opener reseals and signs, and a long list of handlers is what the label is for rather than a defect in it.

Before electronic machines, the tables that ships and gunners depended on were worked out by rooms of people, most of them women, doing long arithmetic by hand. Each value was computed twice by different workers and the two results compared. An error in the fifth decimal place could put a shell in the wrong field. The work ran for years at a stretch, page after page, with no prospect that anyone outside the room would read a name. The writer's attitude toward these workers is best described as:

• a.indifferent to what the work cost
• b.amused by their outdated methods
• c.appreciative of work never recognized✓
• d.sorrowful over a great wrong

The writer chooses details that show care and anonymity: each value 'computed twice by different workers,' the work running 'page after page,' and nobody outside ever reading a name. Grief over a great wrong is a notch too strong, since the passage states the anonymity plainly and calls it no one's fault.