What Does the TEAS Test Consist of?
The TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills) is a comprehensive evaluation of your academic preparation for the specialized training you will need in nursing school. The TEAS is also used for other allied health programs like dental hygiene, veterinarian technician, ultrasound technician, etc. programs.
Once you get into your program, there isn’t any time for remedial work, so schools want to ensure you are fully prepared to take challenging courses. The TEAS test samples all the reading, math, science, and English topics you need to succeed.
Reading
There are 45 reading questions on the TEAS test. (Before 2023, there were 53.) Six of the questions aren’t scored.
15 Questions About Key Ideas and Details
These questions may test your ability to summarize several paragraphs of text. They may test your ability to understand written directions, find specific information, interpret a sequence of events, or get information from charts and graphs. You don’t have much time per question, so you will need to have a very direct strategy for answering these questions. Dr. Adkins provides very logical and effective strategies for the reading section with the TEAS & HESI Mastery Reading Classes.
9 Questions About Craft and Structure
These questions may test your ability to distinguish between fact and opinion, stereotype and bias, primary vs. secondary source, and more. You may be required to use context to determine the meaning of ambiguous phrases or to evaluate an author’s purpose or point of view.
15 Questions About Integrating Knowledge and Ideas
In this section, you will be asked to evaluate an argument, narrative, analytical, or informative passage or information set. You will have to integrate information from different sources, for instance, information from a text with information from a bar chart. You may have to compare and contrast themes in different texts.
Math
Did you get A’s in Differential Equations and Calculus III? Wait—you struggled to get a C in College Algebra? If you didn’t do well in your high school or college Math courses, don’t panic. You can master the math you need to pass the TEAS test and perform your duties as a nurse. Dr. Adkins students routinely get 100% in the math section.
The Math section of the TEAS test has 38 questions. Four of them are experimental questions, so they aren’t scored, but you won’t know which ones those are.
16 Questions About Algebra and Numbers
The 16 questions about algebra and numbers are heavy on fractions, percentages, proportions, and rates of change. These are concepts you will use in nursing every day. You will need to be able to solve equations with one variable. But you don’t need to know trigonometry or calculus for TEAS 7.
18 Questions About Measurements and Data
Basic geometry is a part of everyday nursing. BMI, for instance, is a measurement in kg/m². Burns units measure fluid loss in terms of the area of damaged skin. You need to know some basic geometry, and the TEAS will test it.
More emphasis, however, is placed on simply using the metric system and converting from one unit to another. In nursing school, you will learn a lot about dose calculations, pediatric dosing, weight-based dosing, etc. Nursing school definitely wants to know you understand dimensional analysis to assure you will do well with this complex topic in nursing school.
Science
There are 50 science questions on TEAS 7. Six of these questions are for practice and are not scored. The other 44 count toward your grade. Science is very detailed, and the questions integrate multiple disciplines in Science, so it’s definitely helpful to have a medical doctor teaching you all these concepts during The Adkins Academy TEAS & HESI Mastery course.
18 Questions on Human Anatomy and Physiology
You will be quizzed on each system in the human body. You will need to know how they interact with each other and how chemistry, biology, genetics, and more play into keeping your patient healthy.
9 Biology Questions
This section emphasizes the biology of the cell. You need to understand the mechanisms of genetic transmission, and you need to understand the interactions of pathogens and disease processes with tissues throughout the body. Dr. Adkins, a medical doctor, will give you the understanding you need to do well on these questions.
8 Chemistry Questions
The TEAS test covers the basics of chemistry for nurses, what chemical reactions are, how solutions are made, the properties of acids and bases, the significance of pH, understanding the periodic table, and more.
9 Questions About Scientific Reasoning
This section tests your ability to apply evidence and logic to make a scientific explanation of an event. You will show your ability to use the scientific method, inductive and deductive reasoning, as well as a keen understanding of the WHY.
English
There are 37 questions in the English language section of the TEAS test. Four are practice questions and don’t count for or against your score, and 33 questions become part of your grade.
In this section, ten questions test your ability to use language and your vocabulary. 11 questions test your knowledge of English language structure, and 12 questions test your mastery of common usage. My advice: DON’T rely on whatever sounds good or looks good…it won’t work. Most people don’t speak grammatically correct English.
You Need to Be Ready for the Format of Your TEAS Test, Too
The TEAS test covers reading, math, science, and English. All of the questions on the test are multiple-choice, but if you are taking the computerized version of the test, you may encounter some questions you have never encountered before.
What kinds of questions appear on TEAS 7, the latest version of the test?
- Multiple choice. These questions are followed by four answers, only one of which is correct.
- Multiple-select. These questions are followed by four answers, two or more of which may be correct. You must check all the correct answers and no incorrect answers. You don’t get partial credit on the TEAS test.
- Supply the answer. These questions don’t come with answers. You supply the right words or numbers to fill in the blank.
- Hot spot. The computer displays an image with two and five clickable areas in these questions. You choose the areas that answer the question.
- Ordered response. For these questions, you drag answers from a column left into the empty boxes in a column on the right. If you get any answer out of order, you don’t get any credit for the question. There is no partial credit for these kinds of questions.
Don’t walk into the TEAS test unprepared! Dr. Adkins has helped over 5,000 students get the scores they need to get into the programs of their choice.
Dr. Adkins can help you reach your goals. Contact us at (301) 960-4950 or send us an email at info@adkinsacademy.com.
