Posted on Jul 25, 2018
SPC Infantryman
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I want to try out for special forces, so I finally raised my GT score to 119 after 2 months of studying, and now I hear that I have to take another test to qualify for special forces.
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LTC Self Employed
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I speak fluent Spanish and I did not score high enough on the test. Like others here have said, memorize the rules and know the definitions of grammar. If you already speak another language, it may be helpful. Once you get that good score, then you could pick a language. That means a year at Monterey learning that language. I am in civil Affairs and when I was with a civil Affairs Battalion, our Battalion Commander would ship us all down the Fort Irwin to take the test. Psyop, civil Affairs and Special Forces watch your language skills. Slapping civil Affairs are very closely related to Special Forces and we work together.
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LTC Self Employed
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SPC Eric Hurdle thank you for the compliments! The local commanders need to realize that civil Affairs can actually take some of the heat off their people during an after a battle because if we help the locals and their basic necessities, maybe they won't join the terrorist and do sabotage. We learn this after post-war Germany when everything went to enter key and people were pissed off at Patton because he actually got the Nazis back to work to do essential services. From that, civil Affairs was formed a few years later.
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SGT Robert Pryor
SGT Robert Pryor
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LTC (Join to see) - That's pretty interesting. It was news to me.
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CSM Charles Hayden
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SPC (Join to see) You ain’t seen nothin yit! SF is an ongoing series of tests. They never cease! That is where the Respect for Special Forces troops comes from.

Then, you receive a Long Tab; careful, do not step on yourself, indigenous personnel or do anything that might cause your clearance to be challenged.
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SGT Robert Pryor
SGT Robert Pryor
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CSM Charles Hayden, you hit on something very important that a lot of folks don't understand, even within SF. NEVER mess around with the indigenous emotionally/sexually in any way. At a minimum it can compromise the mission. At worst, it can and will get you or your teammates killed. Under no circumstances did we fraternize like that with any of the locals. I can't see how that has changed one iota in the 50 plus years since. If you can't abstain while deployed to a forward operating base, SF is not for you.
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LTC Stephen C.
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Edited 5 y ago
SPC (Join to see), I think CW2 (Join to see) has offered some valuable information. His advice might be the best course of action.
I took it many, many years ago and did very well. I didn’t study for it. I didn’t know you could study for it, so I just took it. At the time, I thought the test was to measure one’s natural propensity and aptitude for language, so I saw no point in studying.
CSM Charles Hayden LTC (Join to see) SGT Robert Pryor
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CSM Charles Hayden
CSM Charles Hayden
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LTC Stephen C. Remember we were Soldiers Once and Young!

I passed the SF PT Test cold turkey in 1962!
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LTC Stephen C.
LTC Stephen C.
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CSM Charles Hayden, I first took it in 1969, sometime before I enlisted on 9AUG69.
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SGT Robert Pryor
SGT Robert Pryor
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LTC Stephen C. - I agree. I don't think studying for any type of placement or natural abilities test, such as the GT, is ever a good idea. If you were having a bad day that adversely affected your score -- fine. Retake the test so it more accurately reflects who you are. I didn't know anything about the GT. I just knew it as one of many hoops I had to go through when joining the Army' I put little or no effort into it, so maybe I could have done better had I thought it might matter, but there really was no need or opportunity as far as I knew, or even know to this day.
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How can I prepare for an Army DLAB test?
CW2 Electronic Warfare Technician
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Ok. Heres the rundown. Its not a made up language and you can study for it.
1. Its esperanto, the failed global commercial language. Dont study esperanto, I just wanted to set the record straight.
2 study basic English grammar. Like 2nd grade stuff. Subject/object, what parts of speech are, tense and subject verb agreement, etc... that's what it uses to test. The better you understand English, the better score you will receive.
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LTJG Student Naval Aviator (Sna)
LTJG (Join to see)
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Never knew that. Thanks for the clarification!
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SGT Retired
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CW2 (Join to see) Negative. Unless they’ve completely revamped the DLAB, it is not Esperanto. It is styled like Esperanto.
You can’t just go get fluent in Esperanto and then crush the DLAB.

The best way to prepare for the DLAB is to have a good understanding of grammatical rules. But there’s really nothing to study for. A good ear and memory, as many instructions and words are only said once. Portions of the test explain (in English) how rules of the jibberish language work. You will then be expected to use those rules as they test you on the language later in the test.

Please see attached a link to an excellent resource for DLAB prep. Please note, “In general, the test is comprised of a made-up gibberish language with a set of grammatical rules that apply to each section of the test.“

I took the DLAB twice, several years apart. My scores were virtually identical. Additionally, having graduated DLI in a CAT IV language, I learned that DLAB scores aren’t necessarily a guarantee to success in learning a language. We had soldiers with DLABs over 130 washout. We had CAT IV waivers with DLABs in the 90s graduate with flying colors.

https://dlabprep.com/how-is-the-dlab-test-organized/

SPC (Join to see)
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CW2 Electronic Warfare Technician
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Thanks for more clarification, and I did say do not study esperanto.
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SGT Retired
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CW2 (Join to see) - I understand that. Out of curiosity, where did you hear about the Esperanto thing? Theyr similar in the sense that they’re both constructed. But the test definitely isn’t Esperanto.

To be fair, on one hand you write study for it, and immediately follow it up by stating don’t study for it. A bit confusing.
“Ok. Heres the rundown. Its not a made up language and you can study for it.
1. Its esperanto, the failed global commercial language. Dont study esperanto, I just wanted to set the record straight.”
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MSG Student
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There is no preparing for a DLAB except stay away from loud noises for 24 hrs before and clean your ears out before you go to hear the test. The DLAB tests how well you can learn a new language by making one up through the course of the test. A new rule is made up for the first few sections, then one section they are all combined to create what was once an English sentence into complete gibberish. Then there is some story board stuff. The higher you score the hard language they can assign you. It's pretty fun though. Good luck.
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CW2 Electronic Warfare Technician
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Another thing, SF does the DLAB at SFAS, you dont need it before going ( though I'd recommend doing it first so u dont have to while there). Remember, if selected, this score will decide which language you are taught. Are you comfortable learning a tonal language with a funky alphabet like Chinese? Or are you more comfortable with a non-tonal, Latin alphabet language like Portuguese? Theres 17 language options for SF, your score on this test will be the major factor in choosing which one.
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LTJG Student Naval Aviator (Sna)
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Ah man good luck.
I've taken the lsat, gre, two flight tests, and the dlab. The most mind numbing one was the latter of that list.

As far as prep I'm sorry to say but there really aren't many ways to get ahead of it. Part of the point of the test is to throw something out at you that you've never seen and are unprepared for and see how well you adapt and how well you pick up on the information they're presenting you. The point of the test is to see how well you can learn a language.

The only things you can do is a. Be familiar with the style of the test. Feel free to message me if you want to hear what I can recall about my experience. B. Boot up on English grammar. Some questions require knowing some English rules, knowing what antonyms are etc.
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SSG Squad Leader
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Get a Border Patrol study guide and study their language portion. Maybe it’s on their recruiting website too but I’m not to certain.
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MAJ Operations Research/Systems Analysis (Orsa)
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The DLAB is actually designed to be impossible to study for. It basically invents a language, progressively adds grammar rules to it, and then presents you with passages and asks you questions about the passage (both translation and grammar usage questions.) Its designed to assess your ability to learn languages, not your knowledge of a language. You can’t really effectively study for it. For some reason I scored very high on it and that is how I got Arabic at DLI. But I also know people who were multi lingual who scored very low. Not even sure how to advise someone to be successful on that test.
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SFC Melvin Brandenburg
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Bone up on sentence construction and remember to carry the rule from each step forward to the next. I forgot to do that on part 2 and failed by 1 point.
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