The Test of Essential Academic Skills (TEAS Test) is a standardized,

multiple choice Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ (for multiple choice question) is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only the correct answer from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format i ...

entrance exam for

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

s applying to

nursing Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...

and allied health programs in the United States. It is often used to determine the preparedness of potential students to enter into a nursing or allied health program. The test is created and administered by Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI). The test can be taken as a proctored exam at an educational institution that offers it, at certain testing centers, or as a remote-proctored test through ATI.

History

In 1999, ATI commissioned

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

professors John Poggio and Douglas Glasnapp to develop the first TEAS. Since then, the test has undergone several changes and revisions. On August 31, 2016, the TEAS V test was retired in favor of the newest version called ATI TEAS 6. ATI announced the ATI TEAS 6 would be retired in June 2022 and be replaced with the ATI TEAS 7. While the difficulty is essentially the same, all components were updated to the latest education standards, the number of questions in each section were changed, and alternate item format questions (including select all that apply, supply answer, "hot spot", and ordered response items) are now included on the exam in addition to multiple choice questions.

Exam content

The exam is 209 minutes and consists of 170 items (150 scored items and 20 unscored items), drawn from a TEAS Test Bank consisting of thousands of questions that are given on several versions of the exam. The topics covered are

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

, mathematics, science, and

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

and usage. The reading section consists of 45 items and tasks students with interpreting passages and visual data. The

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

section consists of 38 items and tests students' knowledge of

algebra Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...

measurement Measurement is the quantification of attributes of an object or event, which can be used to compare with other objects or events. In other words, measurement is a process of determining how large or small a physical quantity is as compared to ...

s, and data application. The science section consists of 50 items and evaluates students' knowledge of

human biology Human biology is an interdisciplinary area of academic study that examines humans through the influences and interplay of many diverse fields such as genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, anthropology, ecology, nutrition, populat ...

life science Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, respon ...

, and

physical science Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together is called the "physical sciences". Definition ...

. The English language and usage section consists of 37 items and tests grammar and spelling. As of the release of the ATI TEAS Version 7 the addition of

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

and

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

was included as a subcategory of the

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

section of the exam.

References

External links

ATI
website {{DEFAULTSORT:Teas Test Standardized tests in the United States Nursing education in the United States Professional examinations in healthcare