TEAS Study Group: Where Applicants Meet and What to Drill

A TEAS study group pays off for nursing applicants who test in the same season and give shared time to science and reading, the two largest sections. Look for one at your college's tutoring center, in your prerequisite classes or online. As of November 2026, the ATI TEAS has 170 questions, and each program sets its own minimum score.

Four sections, four clocks

The TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills) is made by Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI), which now gives Version 7. It has 150 scored questions and 20 unscored pretest questions, in four sections with separate time limits that add up to 209 minutes (UCF University Testing Center). A four-function calculator is built into the online version, and you can't bring your own. The counts by area come from UConn's nursing page, which repeats ATI's figures:

The seconds are our arithmetic. Two things in the table shape a group's plan. Anatomy and physiology is 18 scored questions, more than biology (9) and chemistry (8) together, and it ties numbers and algebra as the largest area on the test. And the clocks differ: English gives you a minute a question and math half as much again, so practice each section at its own pace.

Each program draws its own line

No single score passes the TEAS. Each program picks which number counts, how high it must be and how often you can retest. Here are three nursing programs, as their pages stood on November 14, 2026 (Wake Tech, AdventHealth University, NOVA):

The same scores can pass at one school and fail at another. Someone with 70% in reading and 80% in the other three averages 77.5, well above Wake Tech's bar, yet misses NOVA's reading minimum (our arithmetic). The minimum isn't always the target either. In Wake Tech's nursing admissions, a composite of 59 to 70 earns 0 points, 71 to 80 earns 6, 81 to 90 earns 12 and 91 to 100 earns 20.

So the first meeting makes a list: each member's program, the score it counts, the number to beat and the application deadline. Members who share a rule can share a plan.

Four routes into a TEAS study group

• Your college's tutoring center. HACC in Pennsylvania, for one, runs a tutor-led group for its own students on Zoom, Wednesdays from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., with no appointment needed (HACC Learning Commons). Its schedule, posted for December 2 through May 5, gives each week to one section. Ask your own college whether it runs something like it.
• Your prerequisite classes. Ask your anatomy and physiology or chemistry class who's applying in the same cycle. You're already covering the science the test asks about.
• Facebook and Reddit. Both have TEAS groups and threads. Use them to recruit three or four people with your deadline, then meet in a smaller chat. Don't share your phone number or your ATI login.
• StudyDuo. TEAS isn't one of the interests in Find Partners, but Nursing is. Pick it, narrow the results to people near you, and write to those applying when you are.

Which sections deserve the group's hours

Three researchers at Ascend Learning, the parent company of ATI, followed 100,225 nursing students from the TEAS to ATI's Fundamentals exam (Yoo, Zhou and Phillips, Nurse Educator, 2025). Fundamentals usually comes in the first year of a program, 6 to 24 months after the TEAS. Every section's score predicted the Fundamentals score, science and reading most strongly:

Together, the four scores explained about 19% of the differences in Fundamentals scores, so most of what shapes first-year results lies elsewhere. The data also cover only students who got into a program, and the authors' employer makes both tests.

For a TEAS study group, that suggests an order. First, close each member's gap to their own minimum, in whatever section it is. Then put spare hours into science and reading, the sections whose scores tracked first-year results most closely.

Drills for each section

Give each meeting to one section, as HACC's schedule does, and pick the drill by area:

• Science, scientific reasoning (9 questions). One person describes an experiment from a textbook or the news in two sentences. Everyone else names the independent variable, the dependent variable and the control, then says what result would overturn the conclusion.
• Science, anatomy and physiology (18). Make cards of organs, hormones and structures. Sort them into body systems against a two-minute timer, then defend every card that two people placed differently.
• Math, measurement and data (16). Call out a conversion, such as 2.5 kilograms to grams or 6 feet to centimeters. Everyone writes the setup with its units before anyone calculates, and the group compares setups, not answers.
• Reading, integration of knowledge and ideas. Take two short texts on one topic, such as two news reports. Each person writes one line on where they agree and one on where they differ, and the group checks each line against the texts.
• English, using language and vocabulary (10). Read out a sentence with a hard word covered. The others offer a word that fits and name the clue that told them, before you uncover it.

End with a short block of practice questions at the section's pace from the first table: 10 math questions take 15 minutes, 10 English questions take 10.

Work back from the application window

1. Find the window. NOVA's nursing program takes fall applications from March 1 to 15 and spring ones from September 1 to 15.
2. Leave room for a retake. With 30 days or a month between attempts, a first attempt by late January still leaves time for a second one before March 1 (our arithmetic).
3. Start six weeks out. UConn's page passes on ATI's advice to allow at least six weeks to prepare. For a late-January attempt, a TEAS study group meets from mid-December.
4. Count attempts the school's way. Wake Tech's two and NOVA's three are per calendar year, so a December test and a January retest use different years' allowances. AdventHealth counts any 12 months.
5. Budget each attempt. NOVA lists $70 an attempt, set by ATI, and UCF's testing center adds a $50 proctoring fee.

Between meetings

Every TEAS section fits inside a 60-minute session in StudyDuo's Focus Room, which never closes. Write "TEAS math, 38 questions" under your name and take the section at its real limit, with people on camera and mics off. To go over misses with one person, post a 1:1 session for now or later in the week. It has sound and a chat, and both of you need a verified photo. If members live on different schedules, Study Hour sets one hour a day for everyone, shown in each member's time zone.

For more formats, see a table of 20 group activities rated by their evidence and the habits that make a partner worth meeting again. The online study group page shows how a whole group can meet on StudyDuo. Once you're in a program, the next exam is the NCLEX, and this plan for an NCLEX group starts from there.