distractor

A distractor is a wrong answer choice that has been written to look attractive. On the ASVAB the choices are not four random words: they are real words with related meanings, or the right meaning in the wrong part of speech, or the plain opposite of the word being asked about. Most points are lost to the near miss rather than to a word you never knew.

That makes the distractors useful. If two choices mean nearly the same thing, they are almost certainly both wrong, because a multiple-choice question cannot hold two correct answers — the pair tells you where the question is aiming. A choice that reads as a straight reversal is a common trap in a synonym question, so read the stem's last words to check whether you are being asked for the same meaning or the opposite. And a choice that is far more extreme than the stem word is usually a distractor too: frugal is not stingy.

Noise is a different kind of wrong answer. A choice that does not belong to the subject at all is easy to discard; a distractor is the harder, more instructive kind, and reviewing them by name is how the subtest gets easier.