My experience with the HESI A2 and how I studied (91.2 overall)
HI! I have the worst test anxiety, so I wanted to make this post to hopefully further ease anyone's anxiety about their HESI A2. My final cumulative score was a 91.2%. They give you around four hours for the test, but I finished in 73 minutes. I wanted to be prepared, I found all the quizlets got the NurseHub Subscription, and started studying in January of this year (I like to be prepared). My goal was to take my test and have to ask myself why these questions were so easy because I studied so much prior. I studied math and anatomy hardcore for about 2 weeks before, but I took it easy on everything else because I knew those were not my weakest subjects. I want to make this as in-depth as I can, so I plan to answer the questions that made my anxiety worse before taking the test.
Starting out I want to say while I had the NurseHub subscription and highly recommend it, just using the quizlets I will list can get you a good grade as well as using other free sources like YouTube if you did not want to get the subscription.
Math:96%
This was my weakest subject by far. How did I do so well? Practice. I never really learned the "easy" math that was on this test. I had to completely reteach myself EVERYTHING. Most of the tests were fractions, ratios, and conversions; the rest were problems like "multiply 2x8" which you can easily put in a calculator. There was one military time conversion and one or two Roman numeral questions. There seemed to be fewer conversions to me than there were fractions and ratios. They do give you a calculator (it is embedded into the HESI Program). After learning everything, I was more worried about the metric to standard conversions like changing Kg to Lbs, but there were not that many of those. I still highly recommend knowing them but just know that is not the majority of the test. What most confused me was setting up for the conversions. I finally made it easier on myself and figured out:
I know the conversion 1inch=2.54centimeters. If I am trying to find 12 inches to centimeter, I would multiply 12x2.54. If I was trying to find 12 centimeters to inches, I would divide 12/2.54. If that confuses you then ignore me, but it was groundbreaking info for someone who struggled setting up word problems, this way as long as I had the conversion written out I could glance at it and work the problem out on just a calculator. I practiced writing out all the conversions on paper and when I was about to take the math portion, I wrote them all down so I could have a "reference sheet".
Below I linked the quizlets I used, one I made myself to practice all conversion memorization, and the paragraph I wrote above is broken into two cards, if you do not want to study that feel free to copy my quizlet and delete any cards or adjust any that you need to. The other quizlet is what I used for my practice questions besides NurseHub. The questions on there were just like my test, and some of them were worded the exact same. I highly recommend practicing these but be on the lookout, some of these answers could be wrong I did not fact-check this quizlet.
https://quizlet.com/425544950/hesi-math-flash-cards/?funnelUUID=3b081652-fe21-475c-a003-d675296aa4d6
Anatomy:100%:
I am amazed at my 100%. I did study a lot for this section because this and math were what I was most worried about and they ended up being my highest scores. I used the NurseHub practice tests, and one quizlet to study for this. The NurseHub modules seemed pointless to me honestly, i only took practice tests the week of just to get extra practice in when i didn’t do flashcards.If you do not listen to anything else I say, study this quizlet. I took my anatomy section in probably 6 minutes because I studied those cards so much and they were exactly the test that I could look at the problem, see a keyword, and immediately know the answer. Now there were maybe 3-5 questions that weren't on the quizlet, so I would briefly watch a few YouTube videos or brush up on your anatomy just to make sure you cover all bases, but using just this quizlet will get you that passing grade.
Holy Grail Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/875771971/hesi-a2-anatomy-physiology-v1v2-flash-cards/?i=3sn169&x=1jqY
Reading: 84%:
I did not study much for this, I am one who only reads for personal interests so I cannot make myself read for school hardly, unless it is a textbook. I used this quizlet below, and it also had the majority of the questions on there. If you are like me and think you can get by without studying I would definitely only use this quizlet. Same passages, Same answers. Only a few were not on there, and some of the answers could have been wrong and that is why I got the 84 but all I wanted to do was pass with a good grade and the quizlet did just that. I did not use NurseHub for this. Unless you were really struggling with reading comp I would not recommend using NurseHub for reading because the passages are much longer and the questions were much harder than the actual test was.
Reading Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/574669243/hesi-a2-reading-comprehension-flash-cards/?funnelUUID=a941663d-3a35-4539-89ba-9eec1da2fe31
Vocab:86%:
I also did not study much for this, I reviewed one quizlet a few times and took all practice quizzes and tests from NurseHub (I did NurseHub throughout January-June). I would recommend this quizlet for practice, and while I did see some words from that I really would just recommend practicing the ability to know what something means from context clues, the test will almost always give you the word in a sentence.
Grammar:90%:
Again, I did not study much. I have always been somewhat decent at grammar. Most of the questions were "what about this sentence is incorrect" and a few were asking you to identify the independent and dependent clause. While I did use NurseHub, I did not find it too helpful in the sense that I don't think you should get the subscription just for Grammar. I did practice the NurseHub grammar but only because I already had the subscription to study anatomy and math. You can easily find other free practice problems and the quizlet I will link below to help you just the same. There are a million FREE videos to help you brush up on clauses and correct grammar if you have not already bought the subscription for math and anatomy.
I think I covered everything, and if you have any questions feel free to ask and I will do my best to respond!