🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 1 of 7: What Connector Items Look Like

Assembling Objects (AO) is the one ASVAB subtest with no reading, no formulas and no facts to memorize. The official description says it measures your "ability to determine how an object will look when its parts are put together." Every question is a picture puzzle.

AO on the CAT-ASVAB

Some questions on any CAT subtest may be unscored tryout items, and the time limit is longer when they are included. You cannot tell which ones they are, so treat every question as if it counts.

Other versions. The paper enlistment ASVAB also has AO (25 questions in 15 minutes, about 36 seconds each). The high-school ASVAB (the Career Exploration Program test) does not include AO, so if you only took the test at school, this subtest is new to you.

Why it matters. AO is not part of your AFQT, the score that decides whether you can enlist. It does count for jobs: the Navy's MEC2 composite is AR + MC + AO and its OPS composite is AR + MK + AO + VE, and many Navy ratings list AO in their score standards. The Army, Marine Corps and Air Force composites in the official definitions do not use AO. If the Navy is on your list, AO points are real points.

Two kinds of AO questions

1. Connector items (this lesson): shapes with lettered points, joined by a line.
2. Shape items (the next lesson): loose pieces that fit together into one figure.

This Lesson

🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 2 of 7: Finding the Lettered Points

Most wrong answers on connector items attach the line to the right shape at the wrong spot. The fix is to name each point in words before you look at the answers.

Where points sit

Describe by features, not by direction

"The top-left corner" stops being true the moment the shape turns. "The square corner" or "the middle of the longest side" stays true at every angle. Use features that travel with the shape:

• Which side? longest, shortest, slanted, curved, flat
• Which corner? square (90°), sharpest, widest, the tip
• Where on the side? the middle, or one end of it

On a shape where every side is the same (a square, a regular hexagon), "a corner" or "the middle of a side" is enough: every corner looks alike, so any corner is correct.

🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 3 of 7: Turned Shapes: Rotation Without Flipping

The answer figures almost never show a shape at the same angle as the top box. That is fine: turning (rotating) a shape is allowed. What is not allowed in this course is flipping a shape over, which produces its mirror image.

Turned vs flipped

Picture a shape cut out of cardboard lying on a table.

• Turning = spinning it on the table. It is still the same piece, facing a new way.
• Flipping = picking it up and laying it face down. For a lopsided shape, the result is a mirror image that no amount of spinning will turn back into the original.

When does a flip matter?

So flip traps only appear when a shape is lopsided (no mirror line). When you see one, run the check below.

The clockwise walk

1. In the top box, put your finger on the lettered point.
2. Walk clockwise around the edge. What do you meet first: a long side or a short side? A square corner or a sharp one?
3. Do the same walk on the shape in an answer figure.
4. Same answer: the shape was only turned. Opposite answer: it was flipped, so that figure is wrong.

🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 4 of 7: Checking the Connector Line

The line is what joins the two shapes, so each of its ends is a checkpoint.

Rules for the line

What does NOT matter

• The angle of the line. The whole picture can be turned, so the line may run across, up and down, or on a slant.
• The line's length. It may be drawn longer in the answers than in the top box, especially when it has to reach into a shape's center. Only where its ends land counts.
• Which shape is on which side. A figure may show the A-shape on the right and the B-shape on the left. Follow the letters, not the left-to-right order.

Read the line from end to end

For each figure:

1. Start at one end of the line. Which shape does it touch, and at what spot?
2. Move to the other end. Same two questions.
3. Compare both answers with the top box.

Key Fact: A line that stops just short of a shape is not "close enough." The question asks how the objects touch, and a gap means they do not.

🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 5 of 7: Look-Alike Shapes and Size Traps

Some wrong figures attach the line perfectly but swap in a shape that only resembles the one in the box. These are the fastest figures to eliminate, once you know to look.

Common look-alike pairs

Proportions, not just size

In this course the answer figures are drawn at the same scale as the top box. Even so, proportions are easier to judge than sizes: a rectangle that is about twice as long as it is wide in the box must be about twice as long as it is wide in the correct figure, however it is turned.

Check the shapes first

Shape checks take two or three seconds per figure and often knock out one or two choices before you study any points. Make them your first pass:

1. Same two kinds of shape?
2. Same proportions?
3. Then go on to the points (Part 2) and the flip check (Part 3).

🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 6 of 7: Strategy, Timing and Traps

Your time budget

On the computer test, the screen shows your remaining time and remaining questions in the lower-right corner. Seventy-two seconds is plenty for a connector item if you use a fixed routine instead of staring at all four figures at once.

The four-check routine

1. Shapes (about 10 seconds): same two kinds of shape, same proportions? Cross out look-alikes.
2. Point A (about 15 seconds): name it in words, then check where the line meets that shape in each remaining figure.
3. Point B (about 15 seconds): same for the other shape.
4. Flip check (only if needed): if two figures survive and a shape is lopsided, do the clockwise walk.

Most items are settled by check 3. If you are past about two minutes on one item, choose the best survivor and move on.

CAT rules that shape your strategy

• No going back. Once you answer, the question is gone. Finish your checks before you click.
• You answer each question to move on. The CAT has no skip-and-return, so make your best pick on every item.
• If time runs short, keep really answering. Official guidance warns that the CAT applies a relatively large penalty when several incorrect answers come toward the end of a subtest, so rapid random clicking can hurt. Unfinished questions at the time limit are scored as if you had guessed at random. On the paper test, by contrast, there is no penalty for guessing, so answer every question.
• AO comes last. You will have been testing for a while. Take one slow breath before you start; the routine does the rest.

The traps to watch for

🧩 Connecting Parts

Part 7 of 7: Mastery Check

Ten connector items in a mix of difficulty, like a stretch of the real subtest. Give yourself about 12 minutes (72 seconds each) and use the routine on every one:

1. Shapes: same kinds, same proportions?
2. Point A: name it, then check it.
3. Point B: name it, then check it.
4. Flip check if two figures survive and a shape is lopsided.

Read the explanation after each item, especially the ones you get right by a hunch.