The ATI TEAS® Exam

The TEAS is an admissions test. Nursing and allied health programs use it to check that applicants have the reading, math, science and English skills the coursework assumes. It is owned and run by ATI, Assessment Technologies Institute, and the version in use is Version 7.

ATI lists no prerequisites for taking it. The decisions that matter are your school's: whether it accepts the TEAS, what score it wants, how many attempts it allows and how recent your score must be. Read your program's requirements before you register for anything.

Each section has its own clock. Time left over in one does not carry into the next, so the exam is really four short tests taken back to back.

The question counts below include unscored pretest questions that ATI is trying out: 6 in Reading, 4 in Mathematics, 6 in Science and 4 in English and Language Usage. They are why 170 questions yield 150 scored ones.

ATI publishes question counts, not percentages. The weights in the outline table further down are each section's scored questions out of 150. How to prepare for each section is the subject of the separate study guide, linked at the end of this page.

Most questions are multiple choice, but not all. ATI lists four other types: multiple select, where more than one option is correct; fill in the blank, where you type the answer; ordered response, where you put items in sequence; and hot spot, where you click a place on an image.

A calculator is built into the exam. You may not bring your own.

ATI offers the same exam through four routes. Your school may accept only some of them, so check before you book.

$120 plus applicable sales tax when you register through ATI or PSI. When a school proctors the exam itself, the school sets its own price, which may differ.

Every retake is a new registration at full price. ATI's site is the authority on the current fee.

Your score is based on the 150 scored questions. There is no universal passing score: each school or program sets its own minimum, and how long a score stays valid is also the school's decision. The number to aim for is the one your program publishes.

ATI publishes no pass rate, which follows from the design: with no single passing score, there is nothing to pass or fail except a particular program's requirement.

ATI itself requires no waiting period between attempts. Your school or program may: the number of attempts it accepts and any wait between them are its rules, not ATI's. Check them before your first attempt, because a program that limits attempts makes each one count for more.

A physical, current, government-issued photo ID, in a name that matches your ATI account. Check the name on your account when you register, while there is still time to correct it.