Podcast
Military Exam Prep
Hosted by Ran Chen, EA, CFP® · EN
Military Exam Prep is a free, daily podcast by OpenExamPrep covering the most in-demand military aptitude, classification, and advancement exams — including the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery), AFCT, PiCAT, AFOQT (Air Force Officer Qualifying Test), OAR (Officer Aptitude Rating), ASTB-E (Aviation Selection Test Battery), SIFT (Selection Instrument for Flight Training), DLAB and DLPT (Defense Language tests), EDPT, NAPT, DoD Cyber Test, Air Force PFE, Navy NWAE, Coast Guard SWE, and Army Promotion Board. Each 5-minute episode breaks down one exam topic with concrete examples, scoring strategies (especially the AFQT line scores that determine job eligibility), common exam traps, and memory tricks to help you pass on your first attempt. Whether you're preparing for enlistment, OCS, flight school, language school, or your next stripe, the material is built around the way the test actually scores you. This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation for everyone — from recruits at MEPS to NCOs studying for promotion to officer candidates earning their commission. For free practice questions, AI-powered explanations, flashcards, and full study guides, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ Subscribe and listen daily — your enlistment, commission, or next rank is closer than you think.
29episodes
Episodes
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AFOQT Exam Prep 41, The Situational Judgment Test (SJT) Format
4d ago00:03:12Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The AFOQT SJT requires you to select both the MOST and LEAST effective response for each of the 50 scenarios within 35 minutes. - Scoring is based on a consensus of experienced Air Force officers, not a simple right-or-wrong answer key. - The SJT score does not factor into the main AFOQT composites (like Pilot or CSO) but is used by selection boards to evaluate leadership potential. - Common exam traps include choosing answers that are overly aggressive, dismissive, or completely passive, instead of proactive and fair. - Use the 'A.I.R.' mnemonic (Assess, Involve, Respond) to analyze scenarios and select balanced, professional actions. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 40, Reading Comp Pacing — 91 Seconds Per Item
5d ago00:02:31Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - To master the average pace of 91 seconds per question for the AFOQT Reading Comprehension section. - How to use a two-tiered approach: a 60-second skim for surface-level questions and a 120-second deep read for inference questions. - To implement the "90-Second Shove" rule: guess and move on from any question that takes longer than 90 seconds. - Why you must bubble an answer for every question, as the AFOQT does not penalize for wrong answers. - To identify and avoid common exam traps, like answer choices that are factually correct but do not answer the specific question asked. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 39, Vocabulary-in-Context Questions
6d ago00:03:15Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - Why AFOQT Vocabulary-in-Context questions require sentence analysis, not just dictionary definitions. - The most effective strategy is to substitute each answer choice into the sentence to see which one preserves the meaning. - How to spot common exam traps where an answer choice is a correct synonym but wrong for the specific context. - The crucial difference between this question type and those found on the pure Word Knowledge subtest. - A simple mnemonic to remember the core strategy: "When in doubt, swap it out." For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 38, Inference Questions — Supported vs Outside Knowledge
1w ago00:03:12Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - An inference is a conclusion supported by textual evidence, not something directly stated. - To identify inference questions by looking for signal words like 'implies,' 'suggests,' and 'most likely'. - How to avoid the 'Outside Knowledge Trap,' where an answer is factually correct but not supported by the provided passage. - How to recognize and discard 'Overreach' answers that use extreme language like 'always,' 'never,' or 'impossible'. - To use the core mnemonic: If you cannot point directly to evidence in the passage that supports the conclusion, it is the wrong answer. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 37, Main-Idea vs Detail Questions
1w ago00:03:35Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to identify signal words for main-idea questions like 'primary purpose' versus detail questions like 'according to the passage'. - The 'first-and-last-sentence' strategy for quickly pinpointing the main idea of an AFOQT passage. - A detective-like method for locating the exact textual evidence needed to answer a specific-detail question. - How to spot common exam traps, such as a true but too-narrow detail being offered as a main-idea answer. - A memorable mnemonic to distinguish between the two question types: 'Go General for the general's main idea; get Specific for the sergeant's details.' For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 36, AFOQT Reading Comp Anatomy — 5-10 Line Passages
1w ago00:03:16Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The critical AFOQT strategy of reading the question *before* reading the 5-10 line passage. - How to master pacing when you have approximately 91 seconds or less per question. - The difference between skimming for detail-based questions and targeted reading for inference questions. - How to identify and avoid common exam traps like factually true (but unsupported) answers and extreme wording. - A memorable mnemonic, Q-FIRST (Question First, Identify keywords, Read for Specifics, Test), to anchor your approach. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 35, Trigonometry — SOHCAHTOA and Special Triangles
1w ago00:02:37Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to apply the SOHCAHTOA mnemonic to solve AFOQT trigonometry problems. - Why the AFOQT favors word problems involving angles of 30, 45, and 60 degrees. - The critical side ratios for 30-60-90 (1:√3:2) and 45-45-90 (1:1:√2) special triangles. - Common exam traps, such as confusing the opposite and adjacent sides or misremembering special triangle side lengths. - The importance of memorizing key values like sin(30°) = 1/2 for rapid problem-solving. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 34, Geometry — Quadrilaterals and 3D Solids
2w ago00:03:01Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - To distinguish between area and perimeter calculations, a common source of confusion in exam questions. - The critical importance of using perpendicular height, not slant height, for parallelogram and pyramid calculations. - How to avoid the 'diameter trap' by always converting to radius before applying cylinder, cone, or sphere formulas. - The direct 1/3 volume relationship between a cone and a cylinder sharing the same base and height. - Strategies for calculating the surface area of composite solids by breaking them down into familiar shapes. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 33, Geometry — Circles
2w ago00:03:23Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - To distinguish and apply the circumference (2πr) and area (πr²) formulas, especially when given the diameter. - How to calculate arc length and sector area as fractional parts of a circle's circumference and area. - The inscribed angle theorem, stating that an inscribed angle is half the central angle intercepting the same arc. - The critical property that a tangent line is always perpendicular to the radius at the point of tangency. - How to avoid common AFOQT traps, such as confusing the radius with the diameter or mixing up fundamental formulas. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
Transcribe →AFOQT Exam Prep 32, Geometry — Triangles, Pythagorean, Similar Triangles
2w ago00:03:33Tap to summarizeThis podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The sum of the interior angles in any triangle is always 180 degrees. - The Pythagorean theorem, a² + b² = c², applies exclusively to right triangles to find a missing side length. - Similar triangles have proportional sides and identical angles, often tested with shadow or projection problems. - Memorizing the side ratios for special right triangles (1:1:√2 for 45-45-90 and 1:√3:2 for 30-60-90) is a critical time-saver. - The triangle inequality theorem states any side must be shorter than the sum of the other two, which can help eliminate invalid answer choices. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
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