Evidence-based strategies, clear plans, and smart practice that fit your life.
Reading Comprehension on the HESI A2 runs to about 47 questions built on passages that are frequently health or science flavoured. That is an advantage: the subject matter overlaps with what you are already revising.
The question types
- Main idea. What the passage is mostly about, not what it mentions.
- Supporting detail. Findable. The answer is in the text, usually verbatim or close to it.
- Inference. What must be true given the passage, not what could plausibly be true in the world.
- Vocabulary in context. A word with a common meaning being used in a less common one.
- Author purpose and tone. To inform, to persuade, to describe. Tone words are usually mild: informative, concerned, optimistic.
- Logical conclusion. What follows from the argument the passage makes.
Read the questions first
Same method that works on the TEAS. Scan the questions, then read the passage with targets in mind. On findable-detail questions you are hunting for one noun, and hunting is much faster than absorbing.
Main idea against detail
The most common trap: an option that is true, stated in the passage and not the main idea. A detail can be perfectly accurate and still be the wrong answer to "what is this passage mostly about". Ask whether the option covers the whole passage or one paragraph of it.
Tone without overreach
Exam passages are rarely angry, sarcastic or passionate. If two options are mild and two are strong, the mild pair usually contains the answer. Writers of test passages are aiming for neutral prose.
Pace
Forty-seven questions is a long section. Decide in advance that you will not reread a passage more than once, and that any question costing more than about ninety seconds gets an answer and a move on. An unanswered question is worth nothing; a considered guess between two options is worth half.
Pair this with the vocabulary section, since vocabulary in context is where the two overlap.