HESI A2 Vocabulary: The Vocabulary and General Knowledge Section
Vocabulary and General Knowledge delivers 55 questions in 50 minutes. Fifty of them are scored. That is about 55 seconds a question — generous for a word you know, and no help at all for one you don't.
Nearly every nursing program we read that uses the HESI A2 requires this exam. Your program's page decides, but if you are sitting the A2, expect to sit this.
This page covers what the section contains, what candidates report about how its questions are built, and how to practice for a test whose word list nobody outside Elsevier has.
What Elsevier says is on it
The published description is one line:
"Words used in healthcare and general settings."
Schools that describe the section say the same thing in more words: general English vocabulary and health-care terminology, both. No source gives the split between the two, so any page telling you the section is "mostly medical" or "mostly general" is guessing. Prepare for both.
Two sub-skills are named consistently across program pages: working out meaning from context, and word-part analysis — roots, prefixes and suffixes.
What test-takers report
These come from candidate accounts, not from Elsevier. Treat them as reports.
1. Words turn up that are not in the official review book. Candidates report this independently in more than one thread. Elsevier's review book is the most-cited prep resource for this exam, and it is worth using. It is not the word list.
2. The answer set is where the difficulty lives. One detailed candidate account describes the pattern this way: two options that are obviously wrong, and two that are near-synonyms. You are rarely choosing between a right meaning and nonsense. You are choosing between two meanings that are almost the same.
3. Some candidates name Vocabulary, with Grammar, as the trickiest part of the test. Not most — some. It tends to be the people who expected it to be the easy one.
Why memorizing a list is the wrong plan
If the exam draws words that are not in the publisher's own book, no third-party list covers it either. A "HESI A2 vocabulary list" is a list of words somebody chose.
What transfers to a word you have never seen is method. There are three, and they map to how the section is described.
Meaning in context
The committee chair asked the members to "table" the proposal until the full staff could be present. As used in this sentence, "table" most nearly means:
- to put to an immediate vote
- to reject once and for all
- to set aside for consideration at a later time
- to arrange in rows and columns
The sentence does the work. "Until the full staff could be present" tells you the group means to come back to it — so it is postponed, not killed. "Reject once and for all" is the near-synonym: both take the proposal off today's agenda. Only one of them expects to return.
Word parts
You do not need to have met bradycardia to read it. Brady- means slow. Cardi- is heart. A slow heart rate. The same two pieces unlock tachycardia (tachy-, fast) and cardiology.
A short set of parts goes a long way in health-care vocabulary: hyper- (above, excessive) and hypo- (below, deficient); -itis (inflammation); -ectomy (surgical removal); hepat- (liver), nephr- and ren- (kidney), derm- (skin). Learn the parts and you can take apart words that are on no list.
The near-synonym pair
A patient described as "ambulatory" is:
- able to walk about
- able to get around independently by any means
- awake and responsive
- being transported by ambulance
Two of these are easy to discard. The last two standing are "able to walk about" and "able to get around independently by any means" — and a person who goes wherever they like in a wheelchair is independently mobile but not ambulatory. The word names walking, specifically.
That is the habit to build: when two options both look right, stop asking which one is true and ask what the difference between them is. The word will fall on one side of it.
The general-vocabulary items work the same way. Abate means to become less intense — not to stop. A fever that abates is still there, and an option that says "come to a complete stop" is the near-synonym built to catch you.
The mechanics that change how you practice
You cannot skip and you cannot go back. There is no flag-for-review tool. Your answer locks when you submit it, and a blank counts as incorrect. On a vocabulary item that matters more than it sounds: you will not get a second look at the word later, when a different question jogs your memory.
Five of the 55 items are unscored pilot questions, and nothing marks which ones they are. Answer all 55 as though they count.
The exam is separately timed. Fifty minutes belongs to this exam alone. Finish early and the time is gone.
The simulator on this site runs Vocabulary and General Knowledge as a 55-item exam on a 50-minute clock, with answers locking on submit. We wrote the items across general vocabulary, health-care vocabulary and word meaning in context, and built each answer set on the near-synonym pattern above. The worked explanation names the pair and says what separates them. Every item is original. None is a real HESI question, and nobody selling you "the real words" has them.
How your vocabulary score is read
The exam is reported as a percentage, 0 to 100%. There is no percentile.
Elsevier does not set a passing score. Your program does. Across published nursing program requirements, section minimums run from 60% to 85%, with 75% the most common. Your program's admissions page is the only authority on yours.
Elsevier's own interpretive bands:
| Band | Elsevier's description |
|---|---|
| 90–100% | "excellent academic ability to support future program success" |
| 80–89% | "very good" preparation for success |
| 75–79% | "satisfactory" — associate and baccalaureate programs |
| 70–79% | "satisfactory" — certificate programs |
What to do next
Check your program's minimum for this exam first. Then spend your time on method, not lists: read words in sentences, learn the common word parts, and practice items that force you to separate two close meanings.
When that feels routine, sit the full 55 on the clock with no going back. You can take one exam free, without a card, and Vocabulary is one of the choices. How the section fits with the rest of the test is in the HESI A2 exam guide; how the full HESI A2 practice test runs your school's set is on its own page; and the study guide has the order to work in.
Common questions
- What vocabulary words are on the HESI A2?
- Nobody outside Elsevier has the list. The published description is "words used in healthcare and general settings," and schools describe both general English and health-care terminology. Candidates report meeting words that are not in the official review book, so prepare with context reading and word parts rather than a fixed list.
- How many vocabulary questions are on the HESI A2?
- Fifty-five on screen, 50 of them scored, in 50 minutes. The other five are unscored pilot items, and nothing marks which ones they are.
- How do you pass HESI A2 vocabulary?
- Elsevier sets no passing score — your program does, most commonly 75%. To get there, practice the thing the questions test: telling two near-synonyms apart, under a clock, with no going back.
Independent. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Elsevier or HESI.