An integer is any whole number, including zero. An integer can be either positive or negative. Examples include -77, -1, 0, 55, 119.
| Branch | Air Force |
| MOS | 4T031 |
| Title | Medical Laboratory |
| Description | Plans and organizes medical laboratory activities. Composes local medical laboratory regulations. Advises superiors regarding status and adequacy of equipment, supplies, personnel training, and operating efficiency. Coordinates with other activities, agencies, and organizations. 2.2. Directs medical laboratory activities. Resolves problems about operating medical laboratory activities. Ensures supply and equipment availability. Applies continuous and effective internal quality control of all medical laboratory departments. 2.3. Inspects and evaluates medical laboratory activities. Inspects of medical laboratory activities. Furnishes deficiency reports and outstanding accomplishments to superiors. Interprets inspection findings, and recommends corrective action. Supervises laboratory work area maintenance according to good laboratory technique, taking precautions to maintain safe conditions for both hospital and laboratory personnel. Evaluates laboratory quality control programs effectiveness. 2.4. Performs medical laboratory functions. Assists medical officers and allied scientists in research assignment in broad pathology field. Prepares tissue for electron microscopy. Directs toxicology procedures performance incident to aerospace pathology and forensic medicine programs. Assists biological warfare officer in developing procedures for detecting bacteriological agents incident to biological warfare. Performs hematological tests and urinalyses. Accomplishes standardized quantitative and qualitative evaluation of erythrocytes, leukocytes, and thrombocytes. Examines stained blood smears microscopically and refers any abnormal cells to superiors. Performs coagulation studies on human blood and plasma. Performs chemical, macroscopic, and microscopic urine specimen examinations. Performs chemical analysis. Analyses human material or other products submitted to the laboratory, using photometric, calorimetric, titrimetric, radioisotope, or any other chemical or physical procedures applicable to clinical chemistry. Calibrates and maintains all instruments. Makes necessary calculations and reports data to superiors. Reviews all chemistry procedures to ensure current procedures are used. Performs blood bank duties. Draws and processes blood aseptically by standardized techniques. Completely types donors and recipients blood; assists in cross matching blood to establish donor-recipient compatibility, reporting any abnormal reactions to immediate supervisor. Prepares blood derivatives. Accomplishes all techniques required for blood transfusion service. Performs microbiological and serological tests. Conducts procedures to isolate and identify bacteria by gross and microscopic examination, staining, biochemical and immunological procedures, or any other determination of growth characteristics. Performs sensitivity test on pathogenic bacteria. Assists in identifying viruses and fungi. Applies parasitological techniques to recover and identify parasites. Applies standard serological tests for identifying antibodies specific to diseases. Accomplishes general medical laboratory duties. Conducts bacteriological and chemical examination of food products, water, dairy products, and sewage incidental to preventive and veterinary medicine programs. Takes all necessary precautions to maintain safe conditions in laboratory for both laboratory and hospital personnel. Performs preventative maintenance procedures on laboratory equipment. Performs and evaluates laboratory quality control procedures. Prepares reagents for use in test performance. Plans, organizes, directs, coordinates, and evaluates medical laboratory activity. Composes local medical laboratory regulations. Applies continuous effective internal quality control of all medical laboratory departments. Advises superiors regarding status and adequacy of equipment, supplies, personnel training, and operating efficiency. Coordinates with other activities, agencies, and organizations. Resolves problems about operating medical laboratory activities. Inspects medical laboratory activities. Furnishes deficiency reports and outstanding accomplishments to superiors. Interprets inspection findings and recommends corrective actions. Performs medical laboratory functions. Assists medical officers and allied scientist in research assignments in broad pathology field. Prepares tissue for electron microscopy. Directs toxicology procedures performance incident to aerospace pathology and forensic medicine programs. Assists in epidemiological investigations. Assists biological warfare officer in developing procedures for detecting bacteriological agents incident to biological warfare. Experience in performing functions in urinalyses, hematology, bacteriology, serology, and chemistry. Also, experience performing or supervising functions such as work normally performed in a routine clinical laboratory (class A dispensary or hospital); specialty performance of tests or technical supervisory experience in clinical chemistry, bacteriology, toxicology, or virology at class A, class B, or analogous laboratory; or combination of foregoing types of experience. Plans and organizes medical laboratory activities. Composes local medical laboratory regulations. Advises superiors regarding status and adequacy of equipment, supplies, personnel training, and operating efficiency. Coordinates with other activities, agencies, and organizations. Directs medical laboratory activities. Resolves problems about operating medical laboratory activities. Ensures supply and equipment availability. Applies continuous and effective internal quality control of all medical laboratory departments. Inspects and evaluates medical laboratory activities. Inspects of medical laboratory activities. Furnishes deficiency reports and outstanding accomplishments to superiors. Interprets inspection findings, and recommends corrective action. Supervises laboratory work area maintenance according to good laboratory technique, taking precautions to maintain safe conditions for both hospital and laboratory personnel. Evaluates laboratory quality control programs effectiveness. Performs medical laboratory functions. Assists medical officers and allied scientists in research assignment in broad pathology field. Prepares tissue for electron microscopy. Directs toxicology procedures performance incident to aerospace pathology and forensic medicine programs. Assists biological warfare officer in developing procedures for detecting bacteriological agents incident to biological warfare. |
| Subtests | Arithmetic Reasoning, Paragraph Comprehension, Word Knowledge |
An integer is any whole number, including zero. An integer can be either positive or negative. Examples include -77, -1, 0, 55, 119.
A rational number (or fraction) is represented as a ratio between two integers, a and b, and has the form \({a \over b}\) where a is the numerator and b is the denominator. An improper fraction (\({5 \over 3} \)) has a numerator with a greater absolute value than the denominator and can be converted into a mixed number (\(1 {2 \over 3} \)) which has a whole number part and a fractional part.
The absolute value is the positive magnitude of a particular number or variable and is indicated by two vertical lines: \(\left|-5\right| = 5\). In the case of a variable absolute value (\(\left|a\right| = 5\)) the value of a can be either positive or negative (a = -5 or a = 5).
A factor is a positive integer that divides evenly into a given number. The factors of 8 are 1, 2, 4, and 8. A multiple is a number that is the product of that number and an integer. The multiples of 8 are 0, 8, 16, 24, ...
The greatest common factor (GCF) is the greatest factor that divides two integers.
The least common multiple (LCM) is the smallest positive integer that is a multiple of two or more integers.
A prime number is an integer greater than 1 that has no factors other than 1 and itself. Examples of prime numbers include 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11.
Fractions are generally presented with the numerator and denominator as small as is possible meaning there is no number, except one, that can be divided evenly into both the numerator and the denominator. To reduce a fraction to lowest terms, divide the numerator and denominator by their greatest common factor (GCF).
Fractions must share a common denominator in order to be added or subtracted. The common denominator is the least common multiple of all the denominators.
To multiply fractions, multiply the numerators together and then multiply the denominators together. To divide fractions, invert the second fraction (get the reciprocal) and multiply it by the first.
An exponent (cbe) consists of coefficient (c) and a base (b) raised to a power (e). The exponent indicates the number of times that the base is multiplied by itself. A base with an exponent of 1 equals the base (b1 = b) and a base with an exponent of 0 equals 1 ( (b0 = 1).
To add or subtract terms with exponents, both the base and the exponent must be the same. If the base and the exponent are the same, add or subtract the coefficients and retain the base and exponent. For example, 3x2 + 2x2 = 5x2 and 3x2 - 2x2 = x2 but x2 + x4 and x4 - x2 cannot be combined.
To multiply terms with the same base, multiply the coefficients and add the exponents. To divide terms with the same base, divide the coefficients and subtract the exponents. For example, 3x2 x 2x2 = 6x4 and \({8x^5 \over 4x^2} \) = 2x(5-2) = 2x3.
To raise a term with an exponent to another exponent, retain the base and multiply the exponents: (x2)3 = x(2x3) = x6
A negative exponent indicates the number of times that the base is divided by itself. To convert a negative exponent to a positive exponent, calculate the positive exponent then take the reciprocal: \(b^{-e} = { 1 \over b^e }\). For example, \(3^{-2} = {1 \over 3^2} = {1 \over 9}\)
Radicals (or roots) are the opposite operation of applying exponents. With exponents, you're multiplying a base by itself some number of times while with roots you're dividing the base by itself some number of times. A radical term looks like \(\sqrt[d]{r}\) and consists of a radicand (r) and a degree (d). The degree is the number of times the radicand is divided by itself. If no degree is specified, the degree defaults to 2 (a square root).
The radicand of a simplified radical has no perfect square factors. A perfect square is the product of a number multiplied by itself (squared). To simplify a radical, factor out the perfect squares by recognizing that \(\sqrt{a^2} = a\). For example, \(\sqrt{64} = \sqrt{16 \times 4} = \sqrt{4^2 \times 2^2} = 4 \times 2 = 8\).
To add or subtract radicals, the degree and radicand must be the same. For example, \(2\sqrt{3} + 3\sqrt{3} = 5\sqrt{3}\) but \(2\sqrt{2} + 2\sqrt{3}\) cannot be added because they have different radicands.
To multiply or divide radicals, multiply or divide the coefficients and radicands separately: \(x\sqrt{a} \times y\sqrt{b} = xy\sqrt{ab}\) and \({x\sqrt{a} \over y\sqrt{b}} = {x \over y}\sqrt{a \over b}\)
To take the square root of a fraction, break the fraction into two separate roots then calculate the square root of the numerator and denominator separately. For example, \(\sqrt{9 \over 16}\) = \({\sqrt{9}} \over {\sqrt{16}}\) = \({3 \over 4}\)
Scientific notation is a method of writing very small or very large numbers. The first part will be a number between one and ten (typically a decimal) and the second part will be a power of 10. For example, 98,760 in scientific notation is 9.876 x 104 with the 4 indicating the number of places the decimal point was moved to the left. A power of 10 with a negative exponent indicates that the decimal point was moved to the right. For example, 0.0123 in scientific notation is 1.23 x 10-2.
A factorial has the form n! and is the product of the integer (n) and all the positive integers below it. For example, 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120.
Arithmetic operations must be performed in the following specific order:
The acronym PEMDAS can help remind you of the order.
The distributive property for multiplication helps in solving expressions like a(b + c). It specifies that the result of multiplying one number by the sum or difference of two numbers can be obtained by multiplying each number individually and then totaling the results: a(b + c) = ab + ac. For example, 4(10-5) = (4 x 10) - (4 x 5) = 40 - 20 = 20.
The distributive property for division helps in solving expressions like \({b + c \over a}\). It specifies that the result of dividing a fraction with multiple terms in the numerator and one term in the denominator can be obtained by dividing each term individually and then totaling the results: \({b + c \over a} = {b \over a} + {c \over a}\). For example, \({a^3 + 6a^2 \over a^2} = {a^3 \over a^2} + {6a^2 \over a^2} = a + 6\).
The commutative property states that, when adding or multiplying numbers, the order in which they're added or multiplied does not matter. For example, 3 + 4 and 4 + 3 give the same result, as do 3 x 4 and 4 x 3.
Ratios relate one quantity to another and are presented using a colon or as a fraction. For example, 2:3 or \({2 \over 3}\) would be the ratio of red to green marbles if a jar contained two red marbles for every three green marbles.
A proportion is a statement that two ratios are equal: a:b = c:d, \({a \over b} = {c \over d}\). To solve proportions with a variable term, cross-multiply: \({a \over 8} = {3 \over 6} \), 6a = 24, a = 4.
A rate is a ratio that compares two related quantities. Common rates are speed = \({distance \over time}\), flow = \({amount \over time}\), and defect = \({errors \over units}\).
Percentages are ratios of an amount compared to 100. The percent change of an old to new value is equal to 100% x \({ new - old \over old }\).
The average (or mean) of a group of terms is the sum of the terms divided by the number of terms. Average = \({a_1 + a_2 + ... + a_n \over n}\)
A sequence is a group of ordered numbers. An arithmetic sequence is a sequence in which each successive number is equal to the number before it plus some constant number.
Probability is the numerical likelihood that a specific outcome will occur. Probability = \({ \text{outcomes of interest} \over \text{possible outcomes}}\). To find the probability that two events will occur, find the probability of each and multiply them together.
Many of the arithmetic reasoning problems on the ASVAB will be in the form of word problems that will test not only the concepts in this study guide but those in Math Knowledge as well. Practice these word problems to get comfortable with translating the text into math equations and then solving those equations.