Math and Verbal ASTB

[Turnin&Burnin]

Hey everyone,

For those who have taken the ASTB before; what would you say the breakdown between math and verbal questions is? 70/30 : math to verbal ... 50/50?

Also, what would you say the Math questions more resembled: Arco books/ Navy and Marine gouge? The Arco books seem to be more More Math Reasoning, where as the gouge are more Math knowledge (At least that is how they seem to me)

I got the test on Monday and just trying to get some last minute prep in...this is the only section I'm really worried about, so any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Turnin&Burnin]

One last question...I've seen problems like the following one on gouges and such and can't seem to find the equation...Thanks for any help

"If Sam can do a job in 4 days that Lisa can do in 6 days and Tom can do in 2 days, how long would the job take if Sam, Lisa, and Tom worked together to complete it?"

I know the answer is 1.09 days but I can't figure out how they got the answer

 

[snake020]

"If Sam can do a job in 4 days that Lisa can do in 6 days and Tom can do in 2 days, how long would the job take if Sam, Lisa, and Tom worked together to complete it?"

The answer is the job would never get completed because Tom and Sam would have to spend 3 days sitting through mandatory sexual harassment training. Following that, not only would Lisa not pull her fair share of the load, but Sam and Tom became less productive because they spent the workday staring at Lisa's upper torso. Lisa then filed an EEO complaint and Tom and Sam spent the next two months in court instead of at the job site, and although Lisa "can" do the work, she "won't" do the work and in the current workplace climate no supervisor wanted to write up the proper negative work performance documentation on her because they knew they'd end up in the ditch alongside Tom and Sam, so the job ended up being over time and over budget to the customer who cancelled the contract and went with company B who produced better assembled widgets anyway, while Lisa got rated 5/5 on her performance reports and was promoted to senior management.

 

[AJB37]

The math and verbal sections are separate on they ASTB, it is not like the Arco book. I took form 5 which didn't have very many world problems like the one you described. I haven't taken forms 3 and 4 so I can't tell you anything substantial about those. But for the math section you should know basic algebra and geometry. If you have time and haven't done so already go pick up a GRE/GMAT math review, which should cover most of what you need to know for the ASTB. For the Reading Comprehension portion I'll just repeat the advice already given on this site, read the question and answer what it asks, not what you think it should ask... also know English.

 

[thull]

One last question...I've seen problems like the following one on gouges and such and can't seem to find the equation...Thanks for any help

"If Sam can do a job in 4 days that Lisa can do in 6 days and Tom can do in 2 days, how long would the job take if Sam, Lisa, and Tom worked together to complete it?"

I know the answer is 1.09 days but I can't figure out how they got the answer

it's a rate of time question. so the amount of the job (we'll call the total job X) Sam can do per day is X/4. The speed at which Lisa does the job is X/6. The rate for Tom is X/2. Add these rates together and you get the total rate is 11X/12 (or 11/12 of the job per day). since rate is amount done per day, we want to find how many days it took, which is the inverse of the amount of the job done per day (ie if the rate is 1/3 of the job per day, the job gets done in 3 days), or 12/11, or 1.09 days.

maybe there's a simpler way, but thats how i figure it.

 

[GhostStryker]

for your math question, Thull has presented an excellent formula for completing such math questions. i took the ASTB thursday and this type of math problem caused me quite a deal of trouble. now looking at Thull's explaination, i wish i had seen it before. all of the problems on the ASTB are easy to solve, the problem is that you have to answer 30 math problems in 25 minutes. so at the most basic level, you need to be able to instantly realize how a math problem must be solved, else you'll waste crucial seconds trying to figure out how to approach the problem. math is where i got hurt, shocking because ive always been advanced at math through my life. be ready to work with exponents on some problems, and especially be ready to factor algebraic equations (i.e. x2 + 3x + 2 = 0; solve for x). factoring was easy for me, but there was a lot of it in the math section that i took.
my other suggestion is to be ready for reading comprehension. the small 4-5 sentence paragraphs they give you to read can have the most obscure details throughout it, so when you have to choose which statement is most true (they invert the statements from how the appear in the passage), its difficult to figure out what each is saying because you didn't understand the gibberish you read. long story short, be ready to read, analyze, and process 100% gibberish, hah. good luck man.

 

[Turnin&Burnin]

I took it yesterday and ended up with a 7/8/9 49; not outstanding but I'll take it; Thanks for your help!!!