The single most important fact about the HESI A2: it is modular. Unlike the TEAS, which is always the same four sections, the HESI Admission Assessment is assembled by your school from a menu. Two applicants can sit "the HESI" and take completely different exams.
The academic sections
- Reading Comprehension — ~47 items. Passages with main idea, inference, vocabulary in context, and author's tone.
- Vocabulary & General Knowledge — ~50 items. General and health-adjacent vocabulary.
- Grammar — ~50 items. Parts of speech, sentence structure, common usage errors.
- Mathematics — ~50 items. Arithmetic, fractions, decimals, ratios, percentages, and conversions — heavy on dosage-style applied problems.
- Anatomy & Physiology — ~25 items. Body systems, structures and functions.
- Biology — ~25 items. Cells, metabolism, molecules, genetics.
- Chemistry — ~25 items. Atomic structure, bonding, reactions, the periodic table.
- Physics — ~25 items. Rarely required; check before you study it.
There are also non-academic modules — a Learning Style and a Personality profile — which are not scored in the pass/fail sense and need no revision.
The most commonly required combination
Most nursing programmes ask for some subset of: Reading, Vocabulary, Grammar, Mathematics, and Anatomy & Physiology. A&P is the one that most often carries its own minimum score, and it is the section applicants most often underestimate.
Scoring
You get a percentage per section and a cumulative score. Most programmes want 75%+, with competitive ones looking for 85–90%. Some set a separate, higher floor on A&P or Maths. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so answer everything.
Where the HESI differs from the TEAS
- Maths leans applied. Expect conversions, ratios and dosage-shaped word problems rather than abstract algebra.
- Vocabulary is its own section. The TEAS folds vocabulary into English & Language Usage; the HESI gives it ~50 questions of its own, so a word list genuinely pays here.
- Science is split. Rather than one Science section, A&P, Biology and Chemistry are separate modules that your school selects individually.
- Grammar is deeper. ~50 items versus the TEAS's 37-question English section.
How to study for it
Work section by section rather than mixing, because the sections are so different in character. Vocabulary and Grammar reward daily short reps — 15 minutes of flashcards beats a two-hour block once a week. A&P rewards structure: learn each system's parts and their function together, not as isolated terms.
CinnaEntry covers all seven academic HESI sections with 3,220 questions, plus cheat sheets for the A&P and chemistry topics that carry the most weight.