HESI A2 section
Vocabulary & General Knowledge
Word meaning, mostly the general words health care uses every day — how a patient feels, how a disease behaves, what a treatment does.
- 55 questions (50 scored)
- 50 minutes
- 14 topics
Health-care vocabulary
- Words for How a Patient Feels & LooksHigh-yield words for symptoms and appearance — how a patient feels, looks and presents (malaise, lethargic and the like).
- Words for Illness Course & SeverityWords for how a condition starts, behaves and ends: onset, duration, severity, spread and outlook.
- Body, Position & Direction WordsGeneral words that describe location, size, shape and position of the body or an object — the everyday cousins of A&P terms.
- Words for Body Processes & ActionsVerbs and nouns for what the body does — taking in, breaking down, moving, releasing, narrowing and widening.
- Treatment & Medication WordsWords used about treatments and drugs: effects, strength, safety, timing, and when a treatment should not be given.
- Nursing Actions & Care WordsThe words for what caregivers do — assessing, monitoring, assisting, preventing and recording care.
- Words for Behavior, Mood & ThinkingWords that describe a person's mood, behavior, cooperation and mental clarity.
- Amount, Frequency & Time WordsWords for how much, how often and when — too little, too much, now and then, at the same time, before and after.
- Communication, Ethics & the Care TeamWords for professional communication, privacy, consent, responsibility and working on a team.
General vocabulary
- General Vocabulary: Describing WordsGeneral-English adjectives the section tests outside a health context — words that describe people, ideas, quality and degree.
- General Vocabulary: Action & Idea WordsGeneral-English verbs and nouns the section tests — words for acting, changing, judging and abstract ideas.
Word-solving strategies
- Context Clues & Multiple-Meaning WordsUsing definition, synonym, antonym and example clues to pin down a word, and picking the right sense of a word with several meanings.
- PrefixesThe prefixes that unlock the most general and health-care words — number, size, position, negation and time.
- Roots & SuffixesCommon Latin and Greek roots (incl. body-part roots) and the suffixes that mark condition, procedure, part of speech or person.
Study Vocabulary topic by topic, then take the timed section test.
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