[September 25, 2026] In the “old days” of U.S. Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), our Soldiers were smart. They knew that scoring high on the test itself meant quicker promotions and better assignments. So they did what any good Soldier would do under those circumstances; they practiced for the test. This is called “training to the test.”
It worked. The idea is the same in education where students are taught the test questions and answers. In the military, instead of building general fitness or combat readiness (the real goal), the Soldier’s goal is a high score on test day, not broader capability.
This is why the Army’s leadership used that exact language when they rolled out the new Physical Readiness Training. They argued that the old test had created a culture in which “testing drove training.” Units conducted daily PT doing those qualifications measured on the test, even if those test events correlated poorly with warrior tasks. The new tests were meant to break that habit.
The underlying training principle is specificity (the SAID principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands). You get better at what you actually practice. That is why a few weeks of high-volume, test-format push-ups and timed 2-mile runs can raise an PT score without making someone much stronger, more powerful, or more durable for anything else.
So when soldiers are “just getting ready for the APFT,” they are training to the test.
I learned about this concept first when I saw the movie The Right Stuff, starring Ed Harris as astronaut John Glenn. In the early part of the movie, it shows NASA medical personnel giving a series of physical fitness tests to the candidates. Only one would be selected for this extraordinary prestigious slot. Obviously, how well each of those taking the tests would do played a major role in the final selection process.
In one scene, it shows the candidates struggling to breath with a respirator on that tracks their oxygen levels, while performing a demanding aerobic exercise. All the men were gasping for air, except John Glenn. He was breathing normally, as if he were in the greatest shape of all. He had an inside advantage. He had trained to the test (the astronaut test).
I’ve seen this before, also in the 1980s, when I was part of a select committee evaluating top candidates for a university professorship. A woman in her late twenties stood out well above all the others. After she was hired, I asked her how she did it. She said that she had written down all the potential questions, and wrote out the best answers (reviewed by her professors) and essentially memorized them. She had trained for the test (an interview).
Does “training to the test” work? Obviously, it does. The question is not the issue. That practice only exposes a natural human reaction; be seen as the best of the best. Who wouldn’t want that?
Yesterday I wrote about Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s testing Generals. The worry was that those Colonels up for promotion would eventually figure out how to pass the tests by training to the test. They will.
————
Please read my books:
100%. Sir, you nailed it. However, like you’ve implied, those Flag Officers or any good trooper is going to figure out the test and train for the test. That is the way we are, and you know, that is okay.