TEAS English study guide
TEAS English · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The ATI TEAS, or Test of Essential Academic Skills, is a standardized exam that nursing and allied health programs use to assess applicant readiness. It is an admissions instrument rather than a license or credential: taking it does not certify you to practice, and each program decides which TEAS format it accepts, whether it accepts remote scores, and what minimum score it expects. The exam covers four subject areas - math, science, reading, and English and language usage - and ATI's current prep materials are aligned to the TEAS, Version 7 exam. This page addresses the English and language usage portion, which draws on standard English conventions, knowledge of language, and vocabulary acquisition and use. Topics on this exam: Conventions of Standard English, Knowledge of Language, and Vocabulary Acquisition and Use. The TEAS English study guide has 3 sections and about 945 words.
01Conventions of Standard English
Standard English questions ask you to apply fixed rules, not personal preference. Know these areas: subject–verb agreement, pronoun–antecedent agreement and pronoun case, verb tense consistency, punctuation (commas, semicolons, colons, apostrophes), modifier placement, parallelism, and capitalization. The most common trap is a subject separated from its verb by a prepositional phrase or parenthetical: in “The box of old photographs (was/were) in the attic,” the subject is box , so was is correct. Indefinite pronouns such as each , everyone , and neither are singular; collective nouns like team are usually singular in American English.
310 words, about 2 min02Knowledge of Language
Knowledge of Language questions ask whether a sentence is clear, concise, and appropriate for its audience and purpose. You need to recognize redundancy, wordiness, vague wording, misplaced modifiers, ambiguous pronouns, inconsistent tone, and faulty parallelism. You also need to choose effective transitions and combine sentences without changing meaning. Wordiness is the most frequent trap.
321 words, about 2 min03Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
Vocabulary questions test your ability to infer meaning from context and to choose words that fit both meaning and tone. Learn common prefixes ( pre- , anti- , mis- ), suffixes that signal part of speech ( -tion , -ous , -ify ), and roots ( scrib/script , bene , mal ). Distinguish denotation-the dictionary definition-from connotation, the positive, negative, or neutral feeling a word carries. Know synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and multiple-meaning words.
314 words, about 2 min