HESI A2 › § Vocabulary
Free HESI A2 Vocabulary Practice Questions
The HESI A2 Vocabulary subtest asks fifty scored questions in fifty minutes, testing whether you know the everyday and medical terms nursing programs expect on day one. Most items give you a sentence with one word underlined and ask which of four choices is closest in meaning.
The seven questions below are free, original, and written by RedRubric, not pulled from a real HESI form. Each one is mapped to the same word families and question types the full bank covers, with a rationale after every answer so you learn from a miss rather than just noting it.
A discharge instruction sheet can be described as succinct or as convoluted. Which statement correctly sorts these two words into the clarity camps the exam tests?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: D, Succinct signals writing that does its job clearly, while convoluted signals writing that is unnecessarily complicated and hard to follow
Succinct writing is brief and clear, the same camp as concise and coherent, while convoluted writing is needlessly complicated, the same camp as ambiguous and obscure. They are not two degrees of the same problem, not purely about length or tone, and not stronger or weaker versions of one another.
Knowing that the suffix -phobia means an intense or irrational fear, which term best describes a patient who becomes panicked inside the enclosed tube of an MRI scanner?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: A, Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia names a fear of confined spaces, matching a patient's panic inside an enclosed scanner. Agoraphobia, hydrophobia, and acrophobia use the same suffix but name fears of open spaces or crowds, water, and heights.
Because the patient's heart could no longer keep up with the body's demands, and vital signs began to fail rapidly, the physician documented that the patient was starting to decompensate. Which meaning of the prefix de- supports this term?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: A, down, away, or a loss of function
De- signals a downward loss or removal, matching a rapid failure of the body's ability to keep up. The distractors describe super- (above), re- (again), and inter- (between), each a different prefix.
A screening test detects an infection in a patient who has no current symptoms and does not feel unwell. Which term correctly describes this stage of the infection, and what does it mean?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: A, Latent, meaning present in the body but not yet showing symptoms
Latent describes an infection present in the body without yet producing symptoms, matching a positive screening test with no current illness. Acute describes sudden severity rather than silence, virulent describes how infectious an organism is rather than its stage, and palpable relates to touch, not symptom timing.
A discharge summary noted that the patient's mood had grown lugubrious since the diagnosis, though the note gave no direct definition of the word. Which statement about finding its meaning is correct?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: D, The surrounding sentence's serious tone suggests a negative meaning, which is enough to eliminate any cheerful or neutral answer choice
Even without a stated synonym or example, the grim situation, a diagnosis and a note about worsening mood, sets a negative tone, and tone alone is enough to rule out any cheerful or neutral option. The other statements overclaim: some meaning can still be determined from tone, the word is not necessarily physical, and tone can narrow an answer even without a contrast word.
A surgical consent form lists three possible procedures depending on what the surgeon finds during the operation: a "gastrotomy", which cuts into the stomach to look inside, a "gastrectomy", which removes part of the stomach, and a "gastrostomy", which creates a permanent opening into the stomach through the abdominal wall. Based on these examples, which statement correctly matches each suffix to its meaning?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: C, -tomy means to cut into, -ectomy means to remove, and -ostomy means to create a new opening
The suffix -tomy means to cut into or make an incision, -ectomy means to cut out or remove, and -ostomy means to create a new opening, which is exactly how the three procedures differ even though they all share the same stomach root. Mixing up these suffixes could lead someone to expect an entirely different procedure than the one planned.
During the debrief, the attending physician ______ to a similar case from the year before without ever naming the patient, while the actual cause of this patient's reaction continued to ______ the whole care team. Which pair of words correctly completes the blanks, in order?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Correct answer: B, allude, elude
Allude means to refer to something indirectly, matching a reference to a past case without naming the patient, while elude means to escape or evade, matching a cause the team could not pin down. Reversing the pair, or repeating one spelling in both blanks, does not fit both meanings.
That is seven of hundreds.
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Practise all HESI A2 vocabularyquestions →What the HESI vocabulary subtest covers, and how many questions.
What’s on the HESI A2 vocabulary subtest
The HESI A2 Vocabulary subtest is 55 questions in 50 minutes, of which 50 are scored. It spans 3 content areas.
- Vocabulary in Context. Use context clues and the pull of synonyms and antonyms to fix a word’s meaning.
- Word Parts. Break medical and academic words into prefixes, roots and suffixes you can decode.
- Health and Academic Vocabulary. Learn the everyday academic terms, the health terms and the confusable pairs the exam favours.
What students ask about HESI vocabulary.
HESI A2 vocabulary questions, answered.
How many questions are on the HESI A2 Vocabulary subtest?
Fifty scored questions in fifty minutes on the current HESI A2. Some test forms add a small number of unscored pilot items that look identical, so pace yourself as if every question counts.
Are these real HESI A2 questions?
No. All seven questions here, and every question in the full bank, are original and written by RedRubric. They are mapped to the HESI A2 outline so the word families and question styles match what you will see on test day, but the exact wording is ours, not Elsevier's.
What happens after I answer the seven free questions?
Each answer unlocks a rationale explaining why the right choice fits and why the others do not. When you are through the seven, a link takes you to the complete vocabulary bank for continued, tracked practice.