(a)The number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in any armed force during any fiscal year whose score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the tenth percentile and below the thirty-first percentile may not exceed 20 percent of the total number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in such armed force during such fiscal year.

(b)A person who is not a high school graduate may not be accepted for enlistment in the armed forces unless the score of that person on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the thirty-first percentile; however, a person may not be denied enlistment in the armed forces solely because of his not having a high school diploma if his enlistment is needed to meet established strength requirements.

An AFQT score is derived from the ASVAB(essentially the militaries’ IQ test). IQ scores are based on a normal distribution of scores from the general population with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. So the 30th percentile represents an IQ score of 92 while the 10th percentile would correlate with an IQ of 81.

  • WiseThat@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    This is a myth. There IS a test, called the “Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)”, which is a competency test to see what jobs you would be suited for, but that is NOT an IQ test.

    Sure, if you score badly on that test you will LIKELY have a low score on an IQ test, probably because something like 40% of American adults are illiterate or have low-literacy and that would impact your ability to do any test.

    But the military does not IQ test.

    • Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.net
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      1 year ago

      It is a percentile-based test against others who’ve tested on it. So it’s similar to an IQ test in that regard.

      • WiseThat@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Sure… But it’s a DIFFERENT TEST, on a different population of people, with the goal of measuring military-specific factors.

        • contextual_somebody@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This is essentially a semantics argument and doesn’t make this post a “myth.” The military aptitude tests are effectively an intelligence quotient, just not a standard “IQ test”

        • torknorggren@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          And if low iq folks are more likely to seek enlistment, the distribution could be significantly lower than iq/the population at large.

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Eh, I met plenty of very smart people while serving. I also met plenty of very fucking stupid people. I’d say the ratio is about the same as the general population, since the military offers a lot of very attractive financial incentives to poor and middle class folks alike. Although, free college is the number one reason most enlist, in my experience. I know it was the main reason I did it. Gotta love a society that allows colleges to price gouge tuition so badly in the first place…

              • Ejh3k@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                The VA loan is legitimately the thing they should be promoting the hell out of instead of college.

                I bought my first house mostly with mostly cash I’d saved up in the army, also it was cheaper than my wife’s current vehicle. But when we got married and started thinking about buying a house, she learned about the VA loan and creamed herself. Sure it’s a lot of extra paperwork, but no down payment and no mortgage insurance, goddamn it was a godsend.

                • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Indeed, aside from the GI Bill, which I initially signed up for, I later found out about the VA Home Loan program and it was a huge lifesaver for us and has helped us secure a home loan twice now (not simultaneously).

            • GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.socialOP
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              1 year ago

              Personally I agree that the military is as good of a sampling of intelligence as the general population, but there is something to be said about the potential issue of a normal distribution bias. (Up or down) If there was an analysis on it I’d wager that the correlation coefficient would be very close to 1. I just wish that the critics of this simplification would avoid portraying the ASVAB as having NO correlation with IQ.

              People mention that there’s some dumb mfers in the military. My friend included.(I’ll let you decide on which side of that assessment he’s on lol) but I think it’s a familiarity bias. You’re forced to work with(and against) those individuals no matter your intelligence level in the military. In contrast, people in the general population tend to work mostly with people that are around their own level of intelligence unless it’s customer service.

              • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                . . . tend to work mostly with people that are around their own level of intelligence unless it’s customer service.

                Heh, never thought about this before, but that probably explains why both people in either customer service or the military tend to be jaded, cynical people, lol.

            • Ejh3k@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              One night on radio watch, I dug through the laptop we were keeping a log in and found a spreadsheet containing everyone in our company’s asvab scores. It was a fascinating thing to look at. We were MI, and this was back when there was a combat arms MOS in MI still, which I was. And we were always made fun of because we had the lowest asvab entry score (65) while many people had masters degrees. 7 out of 10 of the highest scores were were in my squad. We also had the lowest, but that’s a given. I think I remember I had the highest in the sqaud and my team had the highest average.

              You can still be very intelligent and still want to roll around in the dirt and play with the big guns.