AFOQT Physical Science Practice Test (20 Questions, 10 Minutes)

Thirty seconds a question means recall

Twenty questions in ten minutes leaves thirty seconds each. That is enough to retrieve a fact and mark an answer. It is not enough to derive anything, and if a question seems to require two steps of calculation you have probably misread it.

The content sits at high-school level across physics, chemistry and earth science. Breadth matters far more than depth: you are much more likely to meet one question each on Newton’s laws, atmospheric composition and the difference between a physical and a chemical change than three questions probing any one of them.

How much time this deserves

Less than you probably think, and we would rather say so than pad this page. Physical Science is a smaller contributor to the composite structure than the verbal, quantitative and perceptual subtests, so an hour spent here generally moves less than an hour spent on Math Knowledge or Table Reading.

Our recommendation for most candidates: one refresher pass over the material below to reactivate vocabulary you already have, then move on. Come back only if your other subtests are in good shape. If you are unsure how the composites weight things for the career field you want, read the scores and results page and confirm the specifics with your recruiter.

What the refresher should cover

Physics

Newton’s three laws by number, not just by content — questions often ask which law describes a situation. F = ma and the SI units: newton for force, joule for energy, watt for power, pascal for pressure. The three modes of heat transfer and what distinguishes them: conduction through particle contact, convection through bulk fluid motion, radiation needing no medium at all. Ohm’s law as V = IR, and that power is a separate relationship.

Chemistry

Atomic structure and charges: protons positive, electrons negative, neutrons neutral. Atomic number counts protons and defines the element; protons plus neutrons gives mass number; varying neutrons gives isotopes. Physical versus chemical change — rusting forms a new substance and is chemical, while melting, boiling and dissolving are not. States of matter and the transitions between them.

Earth science

Atmospheric composition: roughly 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen, which is worth knowing precisely because the oxygen figure is offered as the answer to the nitrogen question. The named atmospheric layers and which contains weather and which contains ozone. Basic weather mechanisms and the rock cycle.

Constants worth knowing cold

The speed of light, about 3 × 10⁸ metres per second. The speed of sound in air at sea level, about 340 metres per second — frequently offered as a distractor for the speed of light. Standard sea-level conditions: 29.92 inches of mercury and 15 °C.

The overlap that makes this worth an hour

Several topics appear in both this subtest and Aviation Information: Bernoulli’s principle, air density, the standard atmosphere, and the relationship between temperature, pressure and altitude. Studying those once earns points twice, which makes them by some distance the most efficient part of this material.

If you only have one session for Physical Science, spend it on the physics of gases and the atmosphere rather than on chemistry. The chemistry is unlikely to reappear elsewhere; the atmospheric material almost certainly will.

Working the section

Answer on recognition and keep moving. At thirty seconds an item, deliberating over a fact you do not have costs you a question you did. If nothing surfaces within about fifteen seconds, eliminate what you can and commit.

Partial knowledge is worth more here than on most subtests, because science distractors are often from the wrong domain entirely — a chemistry term offered as an answer to a physics question. Knowing roughly what kind of thing the answer should be eliminates two options without knowing the answer itself.

As everywhere on this test, there is no penalty for guessing, so leave nothing blank.

What a single refresher session should look like

One session, an hour, split roughly in half. Spend the first half on the physics of gases and the atmosphere — density, pressure, temperature and how they interact — because that material reappears in Aviation Information and therefore earns points twice. Spend the second half skimming the chemistry and earth-science vocabulary until the terms feel familiar rather than novel.

Do not take notes you will never re-read. The goal is recognition speed, not depth: at thirty seconds a question you need the term to feel familiar, and familiarity comes from exposure rather than from transcription.

Then stop, and check that decision against your own diagnostic rather than against this page. If Physical Science came out as one of your two weakest subtests and it feeds a composite you need, the calculation changes — but for most candidates it does neither.

One exception worth flagging: if you studied a science subject recently, this subtest is close to free marks and deserves no study at all beyond confirming that. Spend the hour somewhere it will actually move something.

What the syllabus actually covers

The breadth here is the difficulty. Items are drawn from mechanics, electricity and magnetism, heat, waves and sound, basic chemistry, and earth and space science — a spread that would take a term to teach properly and is examined at the level of a single recalled fact per question.

That shape rewards a specific kind of study. Depth in one area buys almost nothing, because no area supplies more than a handful of items. What works is broad, shallow revision: recognising which principle a question is about is most of the work, and the arithmetic that follows is deliberately light. Anyone who finds themselves doing algebra on this subtest has usually misread the question.

It is also the subtest where a candidate’s background matters most and their aptitude least. Someone who took physics recently will find it straightforward; someone who did not will find it a memory test. If that is you, and a composite you need includes it, treat it as vocabulary rather than as science.