The HESI A2 at a glance, and the lines we leave blank
| Full name | HESI Admission Assessment (A2) |
|---|---|
| Awarding body | Elsevier |
| Exam specification | Not verified. We could not reach a published Elsevier specification for the HESI Admission Assessment stating section counts, time limits or score requirements, so this page states none of them. Ask your nursing program which exams it requires and what it expects. |
| Passing score | Not verified. We have not verified a universal HESI A2 passing score from Elsevier. Treat any single cutoff you see quoted as unverified until your own program states it in writing. |
Checked against Elsevier, HESI exam solutions, verified 7 August 2026. Because we hold no citable Elsevier document, this page prints no section count, no list of sections, no description of the format, no question count, no time limit and no passing score. Those six lines are exactly what a page like this is expected to fill in, and we would rather leave them blank than fill them from a source we cannot show you. Everything below this table is about our own question bank, and is labeled as ours every time.
What our HESI A2 question bank covers
This is not Elsevier's blueprint, because we have no Elsevier blueprint to show you. It is our own bank, sorted into the six categories we drill.
| Category | Questions in our bank | Share of our bank | What we drill in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anatomy & Physiology | 742 | 29.6% | Body systems, directional terms, structures and their functions |
| Math | 480 | 19.2% | Ratios, proportions and dosage-style calculations. Nursing math, not calculus |
| Chemistry | 379 | 15.1% | Atomic structure, bonding, reactions and solutions |
| Biology | 372 | 14.9% | Cells, genetics and the core biological processes |
| Reading Comprehension | 267 | 10.7% | Passage analysis, main idea, inference and meaning in context |
| Critical Thinking | 263 | 10.5% | Clinical judgment and patient-care scenarios |
Our category shares across the 2,503 questions in the app, counted from the bank the app actually ships — not Elsevier's published weighting, which we do not have. There is deliberately no score-target column: we have no verified source for what any program requires, so the only number that means anything is the one your program publishes.
How to prep it
Four to six weeks of steady work suits most applicants. Because we cannot tell you which subjects your school will test, the plan below is built around finding that out first and then spending your time where your own accuracy is worst.
- Map before you drill. Run a Smart Quiz across every category your program has told you it requires. Ranking categories by your measured gap rather than by preference is the whole trick, and it takes one session.
- Anatomy and physiology, then math. They are the two largest categories in our bank at 742 and 480 questions, and both reward daily repetition far more than a final-week cram. Spread them across the whole block.
- Chemistry and biology as your program demands. Together they are 751 questions in our bank. If your school does not ask for them, that is time you should be spending elsewhere — ask before you start.
- Simulate at the end. The in-app simulator runs 100 questions in 120 minutes and holds you to a 75% practice threshold. That threshold is our own readiness bar, set by us, not an Elsevier standard and not your program's cutoff.
Mistakes that cost admits
- Studying subjects your school does not test. A week of chemistry prep for a program that only asks for anatomy and physiology is a week stolen from anatomy and physiology. This is the single most expensive mistake on this exam, and it is free to avoid — one email to admissions.
- Trusting a specification you read on a forum. Section lists, item counts and "the passing score" circulate confidently and none of them are Elsevier's. If a source cannot show you the document, treat the number as decoration.
- First full-length timing on test day. Fatigue is real across a long sitting; simulate the full session at least twice so the timing is not new information.