HESI A2 Exam

FutureNurseStevens · Sep 19, 2016

Hello Everyone,

I recently took the HESI A2 Exam this past Friday after studying for two weeks. I was completely shocked at my results because I felt like two weeks wasn't enough time to study. The reason I took it without feeling prepared was to know what to expect when I take it the second time. At first when I began studying for the HESI I was unaware that you could only take it every 60 days. For about 6 months I was studying on and off for the TEAS exam in hopes to being accepted into Sam Houston. Until I was exposed to UT health school of nursing downtown. Unfortunately, I missed UT's spring deadline but, I am hoping to get accepted into the summer application. Which is why I am studying for the HESI and took it for the first time 9/16. Now my scores weren't phenomenal but for only two weeks I feel like they were very good for myself.

Reading: 88

Grammar: 90

Vocab and General Knowledge: 88

Math: 82

A&P: 64 (terrible I know, and the only reason I did not pass)

Critical thinking: 870 or 87%

Going into the exam I felt like Anatomy and the grammar section were going to be the hardest. Surprisingly, I scored the highest on the grammar section. I believe this happened because I had a lot of simple questions like what is not correct or which sentence is grammatically correct? For example when they asked which sentence is incorrect it was something simple as they used "form" instead of "from". I was not asked to identify a preposition or a predicate etc... (Thankfully, because I suck at those).

One thing I REALLY liked about the HESI is that you can chose the order you take the sections in. For me I decided to take them:

1. Math

2. Reading

3. Vocab

4. A&P

5. Grammar

6. Critical thinking

For those of you who don't know, when you finish the section you're immediately given your score for that section. It's a huge relief when you see a passing grade but.... when you see a failing grade it felt like a stab to the heart. Especially since I had just passed all three tests before the Anatomy section.

So here is what I experienced during my HESI. The math was simple. 89% was the ratios and proportions. 6% were random questions that I didn't recall seeing in the HESI study guide like "one chicken could lay X amount of eggs in X amount of time, if you were given 2 chickens how many eggs could they lay in x amount of time" which were all fill in the blank and 5% were conversions. Some of the conversions were simple, some were two step, and some were three step.

The reading section is basically identical to the section in the HESI study book offered from their website. Although, I scored an 88% because there's always two good answers but one is always better than the other... so chose carefully.

The vocab section was pretty decent. There were about 40% of the vocab words that came from the HESI study guide. 30% were vocab words I had never seen or heard of before so I just decided on the answer with the context clues. While the remainder 30% were different types of questions that I felt would've gone better in the grammar section versus the vocab section. But i guess that's what they consider general knowledge.

The A&P section was dreadful. I believe it was only 30 questions. So you really cant afford to miss many questions but the questions were SUPER specific. Mine were all about the heart, hormones and the brain. Which I did study for, but I felt like 50% of those questions did not have information provided in the HESI study manual. I am most likely going to dig up my old a&p textbooks to skim through to study for the next time.

The Grammar I briefly discussed above. Lastly, the critical thinking portion. Ironically for not having any information to study for the critical thinking I was very happy with an 870. I constantly found myself shrugging my shoulders as I read the question (thinking I don't know, I am not a nurse) but if I were a nurse what would I do first? And I guess it worked out okay. I was pretty nervous for this section and it really is not bad AT ALL. Just read the question, view the choices and try to think like a nurse would. After all, that's what we want to be

All in all, the HESI is actually a pretty decent test. Though I am completely devastated I have to retake the entire exam because I failed the anatomy section. I only studied for the exam about 2ish weeks so I am super proud of myself for passing all but one section. Especially since I had just finished studying and taken the TEAS exam and failed twice. Compared to the TEAS, the HESI is a piece of cake. At least for me. I hope my experience helps some of ya'll!