TEAS 7 English practice test

English and Language Usage gives you 37 questions and 37 minutes, 33 of those questions scored. One minute each is the quickest pace anywhere on the exam, and it sets the character of the section. The content is a short list of rules you either apply without thinking or you don't, so the marks that go missing here are usually taken by the clock rather than by the grammar.

What the English section is

Thirty-three scored items make English 22.0% of your total score. Four of the 37 are unscored pretest items, mixed in and unmarked, so treat every question as if it counts.

It is the shortest section on the exam and, on the standard form, the last — it arrives after about two and a half hours of testing. Sections are timed separately, so nothing saved earlier is available here. The other three sections are on the TEAS 7 blueprint page.

What is actually tested

Conventions of standard English — 12 scored items. Spelling and commonly confused words, homophones such as their / there / they're and affect / effect, capitalization, punctuation (commas in a series, after an introductory element, around an appositive and before a conjunction joining two independent clauses; semicolons and colons; apostrophes; quotation marks and dashes), fragments, run-ons and comma splices, subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement and case, verb tense consistency, and sentence types.

Knowledge of language — 11 scored items. Clarity and concision, formal against informal register and choosing the right one for an audience, transitions and connectors, topic sentences and paragraph organization, which sentence does not belong in a paragraph, the writing process, when a citation is needed, misplaced modifiers, parallel structure, and active against passive voice.

Using language and vocabulary — 10 scored items. Working out a word's meaning from context, prefixes, roots and suffixes with the medical ones prominent (cardi-, -itis, hypo-, -ectomy, brady-), parts of speech, connotation against denotation, precise word choice, figurative against literal language, and multiple-meaning words.

The rules that decide the most questions

Comma splices. Two complete sentences joined by nothing but a comma.

• Incorrect: The clinic opens at seven, the laboratory does not open until nine.
• Correct: The clinic opens at seven, but the laboratory does not open until nine.
• Correct: The clinic opens at seven; the laboratory does not open until nine.

Cover the comma and read each half alone. If both would stand as sentences, a comma cannot hold them, and the fix is a period, a semicolon, or a comma plus and, but, or, so, yet.

Subject-verb agreement across an intervening phrase. The verb agrees with the subject, not with the nearest noun.

• Incorrect: The box of gloves were left on the counter.
• Correct: The box of gloves was left on the counter.

The subject is box, and nothing inside the phrase of gloves can be the subject. Cross out everything between the subject and the verb and read what remains. This cuts both ways, so do not overcorrect: in the results of the study were published, the subject is results and the plural verb is right.

Apostrophes: possession against contraction. An apostrophe marks a missing letter or ownership, and its is the exception.

• Incorrect: The unit changed it's visiting hours.
• Correct: The unit changed its visiting hours. — It's the second change this year.

It's always expands to it is or it has. If the expansion does not read, the word is its. The other half of the pattern is placement: the nurse's station is one nurse, the nurses' station is several.

Why the points go to pace, not knowledge

Sixty seconds a question gives you a simple check: the clock and the question number should stay level. At 12 minutes you should be finishing question 12; at 24 minutes, question 24. On question 9 at the 12-minute mark you are three down, and it does not come back on its own.

The section funds itself unevenly. A homophone or an apostrophe question is a 10 to 20 second answer; a paragraph you have to reorganize can take 90. The fast items pay for the slow ones only if you take them fast, and the usual way to lose a minute here is reading a four-sentence paragraph three times hoping it resolves. It does not.

Two habits protect the pace. Decide by the rule rather than by ear, because "sounds right" fails on exactly the items that are tested. And when you have read the options twice with no progress, take the shorter, more direct version and move — in Knowledge of language the wordy option is wrong more often than right.

How to prepare for this section

Conventions responds fast to drilling. Twelve scored items are governed by about a dozen rules, they do not change, and a few focused hours usually converts most of them. If you are short of time and looking for points, this is where the hour goes.

The other two sub-areas are slower. Vocabulary is partly a memorization list, and the medical prefixes and roots are worth learning once because they pay off in Science too. Knowledge of language is judgment rather than rule, so it improves through volume and through reading the explanation on every miss.

Whatever you drill, drill it against a clock at 60 seconds a question. Untimed practice trains the half of this section that was never the problem. The free 30-question diagnostic reports by sub-area, so it will tell you whether your English losses sit in conventions, in language or in vocabulary. The free study guide carries the same weights.