--- title: "TEAS reading practice test: 45 questions, 55 minutes" description: "What the TEAS 7 Reading section asks for: 45 questions in 55 minutes, the three sub-areas with their item counts, and the wrong answers that cost most." url: https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test/reading --- 1. [Home](https://nurseadmit.com/) 2. [How to use a TEAS practice test](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test) 3. TEAS 7 reading practice test # TEAS 7 reading practice test **45** questions on the real section **55** minutes **39** of them scored **10** free here **10 free Reading questions** Answer one and the explanation opens underneath it. Questions 1–4 **Section 6.3 — Paid time off (PTO)** Eligibility and accrual. Full-time employees begin accruing PTO on their first day of employment and may begin using it after completing ninety days of continuous service. PTO accrues at 4 hours per biweekly pay period during the first two years of service, 6 hours per pay period from the start of the third year through the end of the fifth year, and 8 hours per pay period thereafter. Part-time employees who are regularly scheduled for at least 20 hours per week accrue at half the full-time rate for their service band. Employees regularly scheduled for fewer than 20 hours per week do not accrue PTO. Carryover and caps. Unused PTO carries over from one calendar year to the next, but an employee's balance may not exceed 160 hours. Once the balance reaches 160 hours, accrual pauses until the balance falls below the cap. Unused hours are not paid out at the end of the year. Employees who leave in good standing, having given at least two weeks' written notice, are paid their unused balance on their final paycheck; those who leave without notice forfeit it. Requesting time off. Requests covering one or two consecutive scheduled shifts must be submitted through the scheduling portal at least 14 days in advance. Requests covering three or more consecutive scheduled shifts must be submitted at least 30 days in advance and are approved in the order received. During the last two weeks of December, no more than two employees per department may be on PTO on the same day. A request that would leave a department below its minimum staffing level will be denied regardless of when it was submitted. Emergency absences are handled under Section 6.5 and are not charged against PTO. **1** Key ideas and details According to the handbook, when may a new full-time employee begin using accrued PTO? **2** Key ideas and details A part-time employee regularly scheduled for 24 hours per week is in her fourth year of service. According to the handbook, how many hours of PTO does she accrue per pay period? **3** Key ideas and details An employee wants to take five consecutive scheduled shifts off in early March. According to the handbook, what must the employee do? **4** Key ideas and details Based on the handbook, which of the following PTO requests is most likely to be denied? Questions 5–6 **Giving whole blood: what to expect** A whole blood donation removes about one pint. The needle is in place for roughly eight to ten minutes, and the whole visit, including registration and a short health screening, usually takes about an hour. Healthy adults may donate whole blood once every 56 days. **Before your appointment** Drink an extra 16 ounces of water in the hours before you donate, and eat a full meal. In the days before, choose foods rich in iron, such as red meat, beans, spinach and fortified cereals. Sleep well the night before. Bring a photo ID and a list of any medications you take. Wear a shirt with sleeves that can be raised above the elbow. **During the donation** Staff will check your temperature, pulse, blood pressure and hemoglobin level. If any reading is outside the accepted range, you will be **deferred**, which means you are asked to return on another day rather than turned away permanently. Once you are seated, the collection itself is brief. Tell a staff member at once if you feel dizzy, hot or unwell. **Afterward** Stay in the refreshment area for at least ten to fifteen minutes and have a snack and a drink. Leave the bandage on for several hours. Drink extra fluids for the rest of the day. \*\*Do not lift heavy objects or exercise strenuously until the next day.\*\* If you feel lightheaded later, sit or lie down with your feet raised until the feeling passes. **5** Craft and structure A donor wants to know whether it is safe to go to the gym on the evening after donating. Under which heading would that information most likely be found? **6** Craft and structure Why is the sentence "Do not lift heavy objects or exercise strenuously until the next day" printed in bold? Questions 7–9 **Course catalogue (excerpt) — Health Sciences** | Course | Title | Credits | Prerequisites | Terms offered | | ------- | ------------------------------- | ------- | -------------------------------------------- | -------------------- | | BIO 110 | Principles of Biology | 4 | None | Fall, Spring, Summer | | CHM 105 | Introductory Chemistry | 4 | MTH 095 or a qualifying math placement score | Fall, Spring | | BIO 201 | Human Anatomy and Physiology I | 4 | BIO 110 with a grade of C or better | Fall, Spring | | BIO 202 | Human Anatomy and Physiology II | 4 | BIO 201 with a grade of C or better | Spring, Summer | | BIO 210 | Microbiology | 4 | BIO 110 and CHM 105 | Fall, Summer | | PSY 101 | Introduction to Psychology | 3 | None | Fall, Spring, Summer | | MTH 120 | Introductory Statistics | 3 | MTH 095 or a qualifying math placement score | Fall, Spring | Notes: Prerequisites must be completed before the term in which the course is taken begins. A grade of D is passing but does not satisfy a "C or better" prerequisite. The academic year runs Fall, then Spring, then Summer. **7** Integration of knowledge and ideas A student earned a grade of D in BIO 110 in the Fall term. Which course from the catalogue may the student take in the Spring term that follows? **8** Integration of knowledge and ideas What is the smallest number of credits from this catalogue a student must complete before enrolling in Microbiology? **9** Integration of knowledge and ideas A student begins in the Fall with no college credit and wants to complete BIO 202 as early as possible. In which term can the student finish it? Questions 10–10 **Nutrition Facts — Vegetable Lasagna, frozen** Serving size 1 cup (240 g). Servings per container 3. | Amount per serving | | % Daily Value | | ------------------ | ------ | ------------- | | Calories | 320 | | | Total fat | 12 g | 15% | | Saturated fat | 6 g | 30% | | Sodium | 690 mg | 30% | | Total carbohydrate | 38 g | 14% | | Dietary fiber | 4 g | 14% | | Total sugars | 7 g | | | Protein | 15 g | | | Calcium | 260 mg | 20% | Footnote: The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. **10** Integration of knowledge and ideas A person eats the entire container of lasagna in one sitting. How much sodium is that, and what percentage of the Daily Value does it represent? ## Ten questions cannot score you They tell you whether this section feels hard. A score needs all four sections and enough questions to separate a run of bad luck from a real gap. The diagnostic is 30 questions, free, and it returns a section-by-section report with the points-per-hour table. [Take the free diagnostic](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test) TEAS 7 Reading is 45 questions in 55 minutes, 39 of them scored, which makes it 26% of your total score and the second-largest section on the exam. Every answer is in the text in front of you, so what separates a 65 from an 80 here is almost never knowledge. It is pace, and it is knowing how the wrong answers are built. ## What the Reading section is Fifty-five minutes across 45 questions is **73 seconds a question**. Six of the 45 are unscored pretest items, unmarked and impossible to identify, so treat all 45 as if they count. | Sub-area | Scored items | Share of the whole exam | | ---------------------------------- | ------------ | ----------------------- | | Key ideas and details | 15 | 10.0% | | Craft and structure | 9 | 6.0% | | Integration of knowledge and ideas | 15 | 10.0% | | **Reading total** | **39** | **26.0%** | Sections are timed separately, so minutes saved in Reading are not minutes available in Mathematics. The rest of the exam is broken down on the [TEAS 7 blueprint page](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-7). ## What is actually tested **Key ideas and details — 15 scored items.** Main idea and theme, supporting details, summarizing, drawing a logical inference, following a sequence of events or a set of multi-step directions, telling what a text states from what it implies, and using a table of contents, index or headings to locate information. **Craft and structure — 9 scored items.** The author's purpose and point of view, tone and word choice, what a word means in context, how a text is organized (compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution, sequence), fact against opinion, primary against secondary sources, bias, and text features such as headings, bold type and footnotes. **Integration of knowledge and ideas — 15 scored items.** Weighing an argument against the evidence offered for it, comparing two texts on one topic, predicting an outcome, and judging whether a source is reliable. It also covers every question that puts a **document** in front of you instead of a paragraph: tables and charts, nutrition labels, medication labels, timetables and appointment schedules, maps, floor plans and indexes. This surprises people. A real share of those 15 items are read off a label or a schedule rather than out of prose. ## The wrong answers that cost the most marks Four patterns account for most of the marks lost here. | Pattern | What it looks like | | ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Too extreme | _all, never, only, always, proves._ A short passage rarely licenses an absolute, or an angry tone word | | Right detail, wrong condition | The correct number attached to the wrong group, year, place or treatment | | Outside the passage | True in the world, never stated in the text | | Half right | The first clause is accurate; the second adds something the text never said | The second one catches careful readers. Say a passage reports that hand-hygiene compliance rose to 84% on the medical unit after an audit, while on the surgical unit it stayed at 61%. An option reading _compliance on the surgical unit rose to 84% after the audit_ invents nothing: every part of it appears in the passage. The number is just fastened to the wrong unit. The defense is to find the sentence that proves the answer and read the whole clause, including who and when. That holds for every detail question — if you cannot find the sentence that proves your option, it is probably wrong. ## Pacing, and the question you cannot place Seventy-three seconds is an average, not a target. A detail lookup or a single cell in a table takes 30 to 45 seconds. Main idea, purpose and tone questions take 60 to 75\. An argument question or a multi-step graphic can fairly take 90 to 120, paid for by the fast ones. Check the clock three times rather than continuously: question 12 at about 14 minutes, question 23 at 28 minutes, question 34 at 41 minutes. Five questions behind at halfway leaves 58 seconds each. That is recoverable, and only one thing recovers it: stop going back to re-read the passage. Most people who run out of time are re-readers, not slow readers. For a question you cannot place, the rule is mechanical. At 90 seconds, eliminate down to two options, choose one, flag it if your form allows flagging, and move. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, and a blank scores exactly what a wrong answer scores, so never leave one empty. Pick a guess letter before test day and use it without thinking. ## How to prepare for this section Reading moves less under study than any other section. There is no content to learn, so an hour here buys less than an hour on Science, where naming the structures of a body system converts to points almost immediately. Reading earns a **floor** of study time rather than a push: enough to make the moves automatic, then spend the rest where the return is higher. That floor is two habits. Take full 45-question sections against a real 55-minute clock rather than ten questions at a time with no clock, because pace is the thing being trained. Then label every miss with one of the four patterns above. Never write "careless" — every miss has a pattern, and one or two will hold most of your losses. _Too extreme_ and _half right_ are option-reading failures, cured by reading all four options to the end. _Outside the passage_ and _wrong condition_ are text failures, cured by going back to the sentence. The free [30-question diagnostic](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test) covers all four sections and reports by sub-area. What you should be aiming at depends on the program: typical requirements are on the [TEAS scores page](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-scores), and your program's admissions page is the only place to confirm its number. ## Common questions ### Is the TEAS reading section hard? It is not hard in the way a science section is hard: every answer is somewhere in the text in front of you, and there is nothing to memorize beforehand. What makes it difficult is the clock. Forty-five questions in 55 minutes is 73 seconds each, 39 of those 45 are scored, and Reading is 26% of your total score, so the marks are large enough that pace decides them. ### Can you go back to a question on the TEAS reading section? Whether you can flag a question and return to it inside the section depends on the form you are sitting, so confirm it on ATI's own pages or with whoever administers your exam. What does not vary is that the four sections are timed separately: once Reading's 55 minutes are gone you cannot return to it from Mathematics, and minutes you save do not carry forward. Plan on answering each question as you meet it rather than on a second pass you may not be given. ### What is a good score on the TEAS reading section? There is no national passing score on the TEAS, and a program almost always publishes a required total score rather than a Reading minimum. Typical totals are 55 to 65 for LPN and PN programs, 60 to 70 for ADN, 70 to 80 for BSN and 80 to 90 or higher for selective BSN programs, against a national average that sits in the 60 to 70 range. Reading is 39 of the 150 scored questions, so 80% of the section is about 31 correct. If your program also sets a minimum for a single section, its admissions page will say so. ### What happens if you run out of time on the TEAS reading section? The section closes at 55 minutes with whatever you have answered, the exam moves on to Mathematics with its own full 57 minutes, and Reading does not reopen. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, so a blank scores the same as a wrong answer and gains you nothing. If you can see the time going, spend the last 30 seconds putting an answer on every remaining question rather than finishing one of them properly. ### Should you read the passage or the questions first on the TEAS? It depends on what the question asks for, and the quickest readers switch between the two. For a detail lookup, a table, a label or a schedule, read the question first and go hunting for the one fact it wants. For main idea, purpose, tone or an argument question, read the passage once at normal speed first, because skimming for keywords on those produces confident wrong answers. Either way the budget is about 73 seconds a question, which buys one read and one check, not three reads. #### On this page [What the Reading section is](#what-the-reading-section-is) [What is actually tested](#what-is-actually-tested) [The wrong answers that cost the most marks](#the-wrong-answers-that-cost-the-most-marks) [Pacing, and the question you cannot place](#pacing-and-the-question-you-cannot-place) [How to prepare for this section](#how-to-prepare-for-this-section) [Common questions](#common-questions) ## The rest of this guide - [TEAS 7 English practice test7 min](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test/english) - [TEAS 7 math practice test8 min](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test/math) - [TEAS 7 science practice test8 min](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test/science) ## Also worth reading - [How to study for the TEAS 76 min](https://nurseadmit.com/how-to-study-for-the-teas) - [The ATI TEAS 7 study guide14 min](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-study-guide) ## Start from a score 30 questions across all four sections, scored against the blueprint. The report names the sub-areas costing you the most points and how many hours each one is worth. [Take the free practice test](https://nurseadmit.com/teas-practice-test) [See the Pass Kit](https://nurseadmit.com/pass-kit) Last reviewed 2026-09-19. --- Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ATI, Elsevier or NCSBN. TEAS® and ATI® are registered trademarks of Assessment Technologies Institute. HESI® is a registered trademark of Elsevier. NCLEX® is a registered trademark of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Scores from NurseAdmit practice tests are estimates for study planning. They are not official TEAS scores and do not predict an official result.