Customer Reviews

How to Prepare for the ASVAB (with CD-ROM)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I felt that this book was given a few bad reviews, so I thought I would respond.

I would like to preface this review by saying that I have been out of High School for 5 years, so I decided I needed a "Refresher Course" on my Math skills. When I first became interested in the Military, I took an ASVAB practice test and received a 77. I then decided that this score would not be acceptable, so I decided to study for the real test. I "studied" (meaning I took a few of the practice tests) for about 3 weeks. I have to say that the practice test was much harder than the real test, and I felt very prepared for the Real ASVAB. Well, I took the "Real" ASVAB and got a 98 AFQT and a 130 GT. Needless to say, I was very pleased with how this book gave me a needed refresher to some basic skills.

I also wanted to respond to a previous reviewer that commented that "None of the practice questions were on the real test." It is supposed to be a preparation for the real test using SIMILAR EXAMPLES of the Real test questions, not actual questions. I did find a couple questions that were very similar to questions in this book, but that is purely coincidental.

Also, my copy did not have the CD-Rom, so I cannot comment on its usefulness.

I only used the part of the book with the Practice Tests, not the review sections, so I cannot comment on the other sections usefulness.

Overall, I recommend this title!

Good Luck to everyone who is interested in joining the Armed Forces!

i took my asvab and scored 88 on it
it wasnt easy as my recruiter told me, but i found many questions in the test that were in the book
what a Coincidence :P

Strangely enough I too scored an 88 on the ASVAB. After studying for a couple weeks with this book I found the ASVAB to be easier than I thought. I bought two other ASVAB books to help with my preperation and ended up using this book the whole time. Out of the three ASVAB books I had, the CD-ROM with this text was much more professional and up to date than the rest. Do youself a favor and don't overlook this book when shopping for an ASVAB study guide!

The book was very good but it did not contain the CD.I do not remember the book description stating that the CD was missing.

The tests on the CD-ROM are practical and effective. Timing on questions and metrics displayed are useful to measure progress in learning. There is no other product on the market that can give you extensive training on the ASVAB tests like this CD.

I noticed that some users had issues with installing the product, such as Norton Antivirus terminating the installation due to the presence of a virus W95.CIH.Corrupt. After investigating I found that this is a problem with the Norton Antivirus package. Norton Antivirus 2004 or earlier versions, with current virus definitions via live update (virus definitions after August, 2003), is buggy and wrongly detects that an installation file is infected! Similar problems may exist with McAfee as well.

A patch is available online that will fix this problem. (...)

Hope this helps. Good luck with the ASVAB!

I ordered the Barrons How to Prepare for the ASVAB with CD Rom for a Christmas present. The main reason I selected it was because of the CD, and I felt my son would probably be more willing to study something on the computer. When I tried to load the program, found there was a serious virus on the CD. I sent emails to the Customer Service department reporting the problem, and to ask for a new CD, but they have never responded. Now after reading other reviews I see this problem has been around on the CD since 2003 over 3 years. I find this inexcusable on Barrons part not to have resolved the issue in this time frame. I feel this product should be immediately be pulled from the market. I'm surprised that Amazon seeing these reviews about the virus hasn't allready done so. Don't waste your money on this product, especially if your buying it because of the corrupted CD ROM program.

The book seems good. However, The main reason I chose this study guide was the included CD-ROM. When installing the program on my computer, Norton Anti-Virus detected a virus. The "W95.CIH.corrupt" virus at 61% of the install process. After reading about this virus, I tried an install with anti-virus turned off. The ASVAB program would not run. I contacted the Tech support at 510-796-9608, (per the setup menu). The english was so poor on the automated message, I had no idea which selection to make. At the end, I left a message and have not yet heard from them. So far, the CD-ROM is useless.

This book was useful as a preparation guide for the ASVAB, but it was clear that the publisher didn't spend much time proofreading it. There were numerous spelling and grammatical errors, and the practice tests had several questions with wrong answers and/or bad explanations. In one case the question consisted of a statement and choices without any question! I expected better from Barron's. We didn't use the CD at all because we also had the virus problem mentioned in another review below.

To be fair, I've given it 2 stars. That's because: 1) it WAS a multiple choice test; 2) it WAS broken up into sections; and 3) I did take it on the computer. If you're looking for understanding the test in theory, this book will work. Otherwise, the similarity ends there. Other than the example questions, NOT ONE of the questions in this book was on the exam I took (the example questions on the test are the same or similar to the example questions in the book). I just looked at another book advertised here on Amazon and it has at least one of the questions that was on my test ("The Best Test Prep for the ASVAB"). In addition, there was a section in the exam that was not in this book - it's about putting shapes together. It would have been nice to be able to practice that ahead of time. Finally, if you are able to get the CD working, the CAT test on the CD allows you to go back and review your answers; the actual ASVAB CAT does not! Do yourself a favor and buy the other book!