The HESI® A2 Exam

HESI is Elsevier's testing and review brand for nursing and health professions education, and the name covers more than one test. The one people mean when they are applying to a nursing or health professions program is the Admission Assessment, shortened to A2. Programs use it to judge whether an applicant has the reading, language, math and science background to cope with the coursework.

This page, and the question bank on this site, are about the A2 only. Other tests that carry the HESI name, taken during or at the end of a nursing program, are different exams with different content.

The A2 is a set of separate academic exams. Four are English and math: Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary and General Knowledge, Grammar, and Basic Math Skills. Elsevier describes each of these as 50 scored questions. Three are science: Biology, Chemistry, and Anatomy and Physiology, at 25 scored questions each.

Elsevier has also described five unscored pilot questions on each exam, which would put 55 questions on screen for an English or math exam and 30 for a science exam. That detail comes from an older Elsevier document, so treat the totals as approximate.

If you took all seven you would face about 310 questions, 275 of them scored. Most applicants do not, because most schools require only some of the exams.

The weights in the outline table further down are each exam's share of those scored questions across all seven. They are our arithmetic from Elsevier's counts, not percentages Elsevier publishes, and your own mix depends on which exams you take. What each exam tests in detail is covered in the separate study guide, linked at the end of this page.

More than Elsevier does. The A2 is a toolkit that each program configures, and two applicants to two different schools can have quite different test days. Before you study anything, get these from your program's admissions page or your registration instructions.

Elsevier publishes suggested times, not fixed limits: 60 minutes for Reading Comprehension, 50 minutes each for Vocabulary and General Knowledge, Grammar and Basic Math Skills, and 25 minutes for each science exam. Schools may set different limits.

On those suggestions, all seven exams would come to 4 hours 45 minutes. Your own total is the sum for the exams your school requires. Either way the pace is brisk: a little over a minute a question for reading, and under a minute for everything else.

Scores are percentages, and there is no universal passing score. Each program sets its own minimum.

Elsevier's own interpretive guidance gives a sense of scale. For applicants to associate and baccalaureate programs it treats 90 to 100% as excellent, 80 to 89% as very good, and 75 to 79% as satisfactory; for certificate programs the satisfactory band is 70 to 79%. That is guidance on reading a score, not a passing score. The number that matters is the one your program publishes.

You do not sign up with Elsevier on your own initiative. Registration runs through the school you are applying to, which gives you a link, an access code or a department ID.

The exam is computer-based and proctored. Depending on the school, you take it on the school's computers or on your own device using Elsevier's secure browser, in person or with live remote proctoring. Elsevier also offers distance testing through Prometric, at a test center or remotely, for candidates whose school has given them a department ID.

Elsevier publishes no universal fee. The price is set by the school you test through, or by Prometric for distance testing. A price quoted on another site may not be the one that applies to you, so ask your program for its own.

Whether you can retake the A2, how often and how soon are your program's decisions. Elsevier provides multiple versions of each exam so that applicants can be retested, but it does not set the policy. Ask before your first attempt, not after it: a program's retake rule tells you how much rides on the first sitting.

Many older guides and websites list a Physics exam. No current Elsevier document we read describes one: Elsevier's 2022 description of the A2 lists the seven academic exams above, and the 2024 edition of Elsevier's own review book has no physics chapter, where the 2020 edition had one. This site does not cover physics. If your school's instructions say you must take it, follow your school.

Elsevier also has unscored Learning Style and Personality Profile assessments and a separate Critical Thinking exam. They are not among the seven academic exams and are not covered here.