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Ability Areas

Ability Areas & Required Proficiency Explanation

Learn about the abilities which are most important for the selected profession. Do you need to be good with numbers or comfortable communicating your ideas orally? Do you need to be physically fit?

Each ability is given two scores of 0-100. The first score indicates how important a given ability is for success in the profession. The second score indicates the level of proficiency needed. The proficiency score is accompanied by a scale that helps you interpret the score.

Ability Area Scores

Oral Comprehension
The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

Understand a television commercial	Understand a coach's oral instructions for a sport	Understand a lecture on advanced physics

Oral Expression
The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.

Cancel newspaper delivery by phone	Give instructions to a lost motorist	Explain advanced principles of genetics to college freshmen

Speech Clarity
The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.

Call numbers in a bingo game	Make announcements over the loudspeaker at a sports event	Give a lecture to a large audience

Speech Recognition
The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.

Recognize the voice of a coworker	Identify a former customer's voice over the telephone	Understand a speech presented by someone with a strange accent

Near Vision
The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

Read dials on the dashboard of a car	Read the fine print of a legal document	Detect minor defects in a diamond

Trunk Strength
The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without 'giving out' or fatiguing.

Sit up in an office chair	Shovel snow for half an hour	Do 100 sit-ups

Information Ordering
The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

Put things in numerical order	Follow the correct steps to make change	Assemble a nuclear warhead

Problem Sensitivity
The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.

Recognize that an unplugged lamp won't work	Recognize from the mood of prisoners that a prison riot is likely to occur	Recognize an illness at an early stage of a disease when there are only a few symptoms