LPN Practice Entrance Exam

Why practice questions beat re-reading

Re-reading a prep book creates a false sense of readiness because recognising a fact on the page is a different skill from retrieving it under exam pressure. Entrance exams for LPN programmes, most commonly the TEAS or the HESI A2, test maths, reading comprehension, science and English in a fixed time window with no reference material. Practice questions force the retrieval you'll actually need: read a stem, hold the relevant fact in memory, apply it, and move on within roughly a minute.

There's also a diagnostic reason to prefer questions. Re-reading a chapter on dosage calculation tells you the chapter existed. Working twenty dosage problems tells you exactly where your method breaks down, whether that's setting up the ratio, converting units, or rushing the final step. That specificity is what lets you fix the actual weak point instead of re-studying material you already know.

Structuring a session

Work in blocks of 25 to 40 questions rather than open-ended sittings. A block that size takes 30 to 45 minutes at exam pace, which is long enough to build stamina but short enough that you can review it properly the same day. Mix content areas within a block once you've done initial diagnostic testing by subject; the real exam does not group all its maths questions together, so your practice shouldn't either.

Time yourself from the start, even in early sessions. TEAS maths gives you roughly a minute per question; if you're taking two minutes per problem in practice, you'll find that out now rather than mid-exam. Sit the block somewhere you can't check your phone, and resist the urge to look up an answer mid-question. If you don't know it, mark it, guess if you must, and move on. That mirrors the actual test and gives you an honest score to review afterward.

Log the date, the content area, and the raw score for each block before you move to review. Without that record, ten sessions blur into a vague sense of "I've been practising" rather than evidence you can act on.

Reviewing the ones you got wrong

The review matters more than the test. For every wrong answer, work out which of three things happened: you didn't know the content, you knew it but misread the question, or you knew it but made a careless error under time pressure. Each has a different fix. A content gap means you go back to that specific topic, not the whole chapter. A misreading error means you slow down on stem interpretation for that question type. A careless error under time pressure means your pacing needs adjusting, not your knowledge.

Write the correct reasoning in your own words rather than just noting the right letter. If a maths question involved converting minutes to hours before dividing, write out the conversion step, because that's the part you'll forget again if you only remember the final number. For reading comprehension and science questions, note which sentence in the passage or stem contained the detail you missed, since these exams often hinge on a single word like "except" or "initial".

Retest the same content area a few days later with fresh questions, not the same ones. If you get it right the second time, the gap is closed. If you miss it again, the issue is deeper than a one-off slip and needs more direct study, not more practice questions.

Tracking whether it is working

A single high score doesn't mean you're ready, and a single low score doesn't mean you're not; both can reflect which topics happened to come up. Track your score by content area across at least four or five sessions and look at the trend line, not any one data point. Maths climbing from 60% to 80% over three sessions while reading stays flat at 90% tells you where the remaining effort should go.

Compare your practice scores against your programme's published entrance requirement, not against a round number that feels reassuring. If the cutoff is a 65% composite, aim to be consistently clearing 75% or higher in practice before you sit the real exam, since test-day nerves and unfamiliar phrasing typically cost a few points. If your score has plateaued for two or three sessions despite reviewing every wrong answer properly, that's a sign to change method, such as working with a tutor on that specific content area, rather than doing more of the same practice.

Try a set

Nursia's LPN entrance exam question sets are organised by content area, so you can run a targeted block on maths, reading, science or English rather than a random mix. Each question comes with a full rationale for the correct answer and for why the other options are wrong, which is the detail most banks skip and the one your review actually needs.

Start with a diagnostic block across all four areas to see where you stand, then follow the pattern above: timed sessions, honest review, and a score log you check every few sessions rather than every single one.