HESI A2 · Anatomy and Physiology section
HESI A2 Anatomy and Physiology Practice Test: Body Terms, Tissues and Every System
Practice set 1 has 20 HESI A2 anatomy and physiology questions on body terms, planes and cavities, cells and tissues, and the body systems from bones and muscles to hormones, the heart, the kidneys and reproduction, on an exam-style screen. Check each answer to see the explanation and a note on every option; a table of the body at a glance follows further down. Schools publish the section's details (Tarrant County College lists 30 anatomy and physiology questions). These questions are free, with no sign-up.
Practice sets
HESI A2 anatomy and physiology practice sets
Three sets of anatomy and physiology questions. Each opens on an exam-style test screen, one question at a time: answer, select Check answer, and see the correct answer, the explanation and a note on every option before you go on. Untimed, and your progress is saved in this browser.
20 questions
20 questions
20 questions
Set 1 spreads its 20 questions over ten topics; the topic cards below show how many fall in each group. The anatomy and physiology section of Practice Exam 1 suggests about 60 seconds a question; your school or testing site sets the real timing (Tarrant County College allows 5 hours for its five sections). When the sets feel easy, take the full-length HESI A2 Practice Exam 1, with each section on its own clock.
Sample HESI A2 anatomy and physiology questionFrom practice set 1, with the answer and a note on every option
Which plane divides the body into equal left and right halves?
Answer: The midsagittal plane
The midsagittal plane passes through the midline and separates equal left and right halves. A frontal plane separates anterior and posterior portions.
The midsagittal plane: Correct. Midsagittal identifies the midline left-right division.
The transverse plane: This confuses an upper-lower division with a left-right division.
The frontal (coronal) plane: This confuses a front-back division with a left-right division.
An oblique section plane: This confuses an angled section with a section through the midline.
Body terms, cells and tissues · Terminology, directional terms, planes and cavities
Content
What the HESI A2 anatomy and physiology section covers
Schools describe the A2 anatomy and physiology section on their own pages. The practice sets here draw on the topics below, in four groups that follow the body from its terms and tissues to its systems.
- Questions
- 25
- In Practice Exam 1 here; Tarrant County College lists 30
- Suggested time
- 25 min
- Your school or testing site sets the limit
- Per question
- 60 s
- At the suggested time
- Calculator
- None
- In this section of the practice exam
Body terms, cells and tissues
The vocabulary the other questions lean on: directional terms such as proximal and distal, the planes that divide the body, the cavities and the membranes that line them, and the four basic tissues (epithelial, connective, muscle and nervous). Germanna Community College's guide lists terminology and cytology and histology, the study of cells and tissues, among its four anatomy and physiology topics.
- Terminology, directional terms, planes and cavities
- Cells and tissues
Skin, bones, muscles, nerves and the senses
The body's covering and framework and the system that controls it: the layers of the skin, joint types and tendons, the three kinds of muscle and how a muscle fiber shortens, then neurons and myelin, the brain and spinal cord, the two divisions of the autonomic nervous system, and the eye and ear. Questions here often give a structure's job and ask for the structure, or the reverse.
- Integumentary, skeletal and muscular systems
- Nervous system and senses
Hormones, heart, blood and breathing
The systems that keep conditions steady: which gland releases which hormone and how negative feedback turns it down again; the heart's chambers and valves and the path blood takes; blood groups and the lymph that returns tissue fluid; then the airway, the lungs and what the diaphragm does in a breath. Expect cause-and-effect questions: what rises, what falls, which way something moves.
- Endocrine system
- Cardiovascular and lymphatic systems
- Respiratory system
Digestion, the kidneys and reproduction
Where food is broken down and absorbed and which organs make and store the juices that do it; how a nephron filters blood and which hormones adjust the water and sodium the kidneys return to it; and the reproductive organs, from the route sperm take and where fertilization usually happens to the hormones of the ovarian cycle and the placenta.
- Digestive system and metabolism
- Urinary system, fluids and electrolytes
- Reproductive system
What schools say about the anatomy and physiology section
| Source | What its page says |
|---|---|
| Tarrant County College | Anatomy and physiology has 30 questions, against 55 in each of reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and math, and every applicant takes all five sections in 5 hours. Not all programs require the A&P section; if yours does not, your score on it is disregarded. TCC does not offer biology or chemistry. |
| Central New Mexico Community College | Lists six sections: grammar, reading comprehension, vocabulary and general knowledge, biology, chemistry and math. Anatomy and physiology is not among them. Applicants to its nursing program need 75% on every sub-test and a 75% composite. |
| Germanna Community College (Academic Center for Excellence) | Its guide (updated January 2023) puts anatomy and physiology with chemistry in a science part, 30 questions each, and lists four A&P topics: terminology, cytology and histology, anatomical structures and anatomical systems. The whole exam there has a four-hour limit. |
Sources: Tarrant County College, HESI A2 Exam Information; Central New Mexico Community College, HESI A2 Exam; Germanna Community College, HESI A2 Nursing Entrance Exam Preparation Guide (PDF, updated January 2023)
Question formats
How HESI A2 anatomy and physiology questions work
Each question here is right or wrong, with no partial credit. In Practice Exam 1 you can flag a question, see which are still blank and go back to any question in the section until you end it. Testing sites differ here: Germanna Community College's guide says its students cannot skip a question or go back to one they have already answered.
| Format | How you answer | In set 1 here |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple choice | Choose the one correct option of four | 20 of 20 |
Every question in set 1 here is multiple choice with four options. Across the sets here, most ask you to name a structure, a hormone or a term, or to pick the statement that describes a process correctly; others describe a short situation, such as a meal that raises blood glucose or a cell whose pumps stop working, and ask what follows. A few in the later sets here ask for a short calculation from numbers the question gives, such as a change in cardiac output. Tarrant County College describes its HESI A2 as a computerized multiple-choice exam.
Plan on no calculator or diagram
Tarrant County College mentions its on-screen calculator only for math, and Germanna Community College's guide allows a basic on-screen calculator for the math portion; neither page mentions a calculator, a diagram or any other reference material for anatomy and physiology. Check your own testing site's rules. The anatomy and physiology section of Practice Exam 1 here has no calculator, and the few calculations in the sets here can be done in your head or on scratch paper.
Sources: Tarrant County College, HESI A2 Exam Information; Germanna Community College, HESI A2 Nursing Entrance Exam Preparation Guide (PDF, updated January 2023)
Method
How to prepare for HESI A2 anatomy and physiology
What to study first and how to pace the section, for anatomy and physiology in particular.
- 01Learn the terms before the systemsDirectional terms, planes, regions and cavities turn up inside questions on every system: a question on where the elbow lies relative to the wrist is a question on proximal and distal. Learn them as pairs of opposites (superior and inferior, medial and lateral, visceral and parietal) and test yourself on an unlabeled diagram. Germanna Community College's guide lists terminology first among its anatomy and physiology topics.
- 02Pair every structure with its jobFor each organ or part, learn what it does in one line: the larynx holds the vocal cords, a ureter carries urine from a kidney to the bladder, the gallbladder stores the bile the liver makes. Many questions give the job and ask for the part, or give the part and ask for the job, so learn both directions.
- 03Trace the routes in orderSay aloud, or draw, the routes the body uses: blood through the heart's chambers and valves, air from the nose to the alveoli, food from the mouth to the anus, urine from the kidney to the urethra, sperm from the testis to the urethra. A question that asks what comes next, or which list is in the right order, is quick once you can walk the route.
- 04Work out what rises and what fallsSeveral hormone questions in the sets here turn on negative feedback: when a hormone or its effect rises, the signal that released it falls. Practice on the thyroid (when thyroid hormone falls, TSH from the pituitary rises) and on blood glucose (a rise releases insulin, and the release slows as glucose returns toward normal), then ask the same question of every gland you learn.
- 05Learn opposites as pairsSympathetic and parasympathetic, afferent and efferent, rods and cones, insulin and glucagon, arteries and veins: a wrong option is often the other half of the pair. Learn the exceptions as well, such as the pulmonary arteries, which carry oxygen-poor blood, and the pulmonary veins, which carry oxygen-rich blood.
- 06Let word parts point to the systemCardi- (heart), nephr- and ren- (kidney), hepat- (liver), pulmon- (lung) and oste- (bone) tell you which system a term belongs to before you finish reading it, and -itis, -ectomy and -algia tell you what is happening to it. The vocabulary page has a table of common prefixes, suffixes and roots.
- 07Pace at about 60 seconds a questionPractice Exam 1 here suggests 25 minutes for 25 anatomy and physiology questions; your school or testing site sets the real timing (Tarrant County College allows 5 hours for its five sections). A fact you know takes seconds, so spend the time you save on the questions that describe a process step by step, and make your best choice on a term you do not know rather than stall.
The body at a glance
HESI A2 anatomy and physiology study guide: the body systems, briefly
A summary written for this page, not a list of what the test asks: the terms, tissues and systems behind the topics schools list for the section and the topics in the practice sets here, checked against the National Cancer Institute's SEER Training Modules and the other NIH and LibreTexts pages named under the table.
| Topic | What to know |
|---|---|
| Directional terms | They say where one structure lies relative to another. Superior (toward the head) and inferior (away from it); anterior or ventral (front) and posterior or dorsal (back); medial (toward the midline) and lateral (away from it); proximal (nearer the trunk or a part's point of origin) and distal (farther from it) |
| Planes | A sagittal plane divides the body into right and left parts, and the midsagittal (median) plane does so through the midline, into equal halves. A frontal (coronal) plane divides it into anterior and posterior parts, and a transverse plane into upper and lower parts |
| Cavities and membranes | Dorsal cavity: the cranial cavity (brain) and the vertebral canal (spinal cord). Ventral cavity, divided by the diaphragm: the thoracic cavity (heart, lungs, trachea, esophagus) above it and the abdominopelvic cavity below, whose pelvic part holds the urinary bladder and the rectum. The mediastinum, the middle of the chest between the lungs, holds the heart. A serous membrane's visceral layer covers an organ and its parietal layer lines the cavity wall; the fluid between them reduces friction |
| Cells and tissues | Similar cells form a tissue, and several kinds of tissue form an organ. The four basic tissues: epithelial (covers body surfaces and lines body cavities and hollow organs), connective (binds and supports; includes bone, cartilage, fat and blood; cartilage heals very slowly, partly because it has no blood vessels), muscle and nervous |
| Skin | The epidermis is the tough outer layer; melanocytes in its basal layer make the pigment melanin, and sun exposure makes them produce more. The dermis beneath holds blood vessels, nerve endings, sweat and oil glands and hair follicles, and the subcutaneous layer (hypodermis) stores fat. Widening or narrowing of the skin's blood vessels sets how much blood flows through it, and so whether body heat is given off or kept |
| Bones and joints | The adult skeleton has 206 bones: 80 in the axial skeleton (skull, vertebral column, rib cage) and 126 in the appendicular (the limbs and the girdles that attach them). Bones support and protect, act as levers for the muscles, store calcium, and make blood cells in red marrow. Joints are immovable (skull sutures), slightly movable (pubic symphysis) or freely movable synovial joints, the most common kind in the adult. Ligaments hold bone to bone; tendons attach muscle to bone |
| Muscle | Skeletal muscle is striated and voluntary and moves the bones; cardiac muscle is striated and involuntary and forms the heart wall; smooth muscle is not striated, is involuntary, and lies in the walls of hollow organs such as blood vessels. Muscles move bones by pulling on them when they contract |
| Nervous system | The central nervous system is the brain and spinal cord; the peripheral nervous system is the nerves and ganglia. Afferent (sensory) neurons carry signals toward the central nervous system, efferent (motor) neurons away from it. Myelin, made by Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system and by oligodendrocytes in the central, insulates many axons and speeds their signals; the gaps between its segments are the nodes of Ranvier. The two divisions of the autonomic nervous system act in opposite ways: the sympathetic division drives the fight-or-flight response (the heart rate speeds up and digestion pauses), and the parasympathetic division returns the body to normal (the heart rate slows and digestion starts again) |
| Eye and ear | The light-sensitive cells of the eye lie in the retina: rods are especially sensitive to dim light, and cones allow color vision. The eardrum passes sound vibrations to the three middle-ear bones (malleus, incus and stapes), which carry them to the fluid-filled cochlea in the inner ear, where hair cells turn them into nerve signals |
| Endocrine glands | The hypothalamus controls the pituitary. Anterior pituitary: growth hormone, thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), the gonadotropins and prolactin. Posterior pituitary: antidiuretic hormone (ADH: water reabsorption by the kidneys) and oxytocin (uterine contraction, milk ejection). Thyroid: thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), which need iodine, and calcitonin, which lowers blood calcium; parathyroid hormone raises it. Adrenal cortex: aldosterone (conserves sodium and water) and cortisol (raises blood glucose); adrenal medulla: epinephrine and norepinephrine. Pancreatic islets: beta cells release insulin when blood glucose is high, and insulin helps glucose enter cells; alpha cells release glucagon when it is low, and glucagon raises it. Pineal gland: melatonin |
| Feedback | Many hormones are held steady by negative feedback, which reverses a rise or a fall: when thyroid hormone is low, the anterior pituitary releases more TSH, which stimulates the thyroid to make more |
| Heart | Four chambers: the right atrium and ventricle send oxygen-poor blood to the lungs; the left atrium and ventricle send oxygen-rich blood to the body. The route: venae cavae, right atrium, tricuspid valve, right ventricle, pulmonary valve, pulmonary artery, lungs, pulmonary veins, left atrium, mitral (bicuspid) valve, left ventricle, aortic valve, aorta. The sinoatrial (SA) node sets the basic rhythm of the heartbeat |
| Vessels and blood | Arteries carry blood away from the heart and veins toward it; capillaries are where materials pass between blood and tissue cells. The pulmonary arteries carry oxygen-poor blood and the pulmonary veins oxygen-rich blood. Red blood cells deliver oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, white blood cells fight infection, and platelets help blood clot. ABO groups: type A red cells carry A antigens and the plasma has anti-B antibodies; type B the reverse; type AB has both antigens and neither antibody; type O has neither antigen and both antibodies |
| Lymphatic and immune | Lymph vessels return to the blood the tissue fluid that capillaries do not reabsorb, and lacteals in the small intestine absorb fats. Lymph nodes filter lymph; the spleen filters blood and removes old red blood cells; T cells mature in the thymus |
| Respiratory | Air passes through the nose, pharynx, larynx (which holds the vocal cords), trachea, bronchi and bronchioles to the alveoli, where oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse between air and blood. The right lung has three lobes and the left two. In inspiration the diaphragm contracts and the chest's volume rises, so pressure in the lungs falls and air flows in; in expiration the diaphragm relaxes and the lungs recoil, and air flows out |
| Digestive | Mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, ileum), large intestine (colon, rectum, anal canal) and anus. The lower esophageal sphincter relaxes to let food into the stomach and otherwise stays closed, keeping stomach contents out of the esophagus. The stomach's acid lets its enzyme pepsin begin protein digestion; the pancreas sends enzymes for carbohydrates, fats (lipase) and proteins to the duodenum; the liver makes bile, the gallbladder stores it, and bile helps digest fats. The small intestine absorbs most nutrients, and the hepatic portal vein carries the nutrient-rich blood from the digestive tract to the liver; the large intestine absorbs water |
| Urinary | Kidneys, ureters (kidney to bladder), bladder (stores urine) and urethra (bladder to outside). Each kidney has about a million nephrons: the glomerulus filters the blood, and the tubule returns needed substances to the blood and removes wastes. ADH makes the kidney tubules return more water, and aldosterone conserves sodium and water. The kidneys also help keep blood pH normal by removing excess acid, and they release renin (blood pressure) and erythropoietin (red blood cell production) |
| Reproductive | Sperm leave the testes, mature in the epididymis and travel through the ductus (vas) deferens and the ejaculatory duct to the urethra. Oocytes develop in follicles in the ovaries, whose cells secrete estrogen, and luteinizing hormone (LH) from the anterior pituitary prompts ovulation. Fertilization usually happens in a uterine (fallopian) tube; the uterus is lined by the endometrium, and the vagina runs from its cervix to the outside. Through the placenta the fetus receives oxygen and nutrients from the mother's blood and passes carbon dioxide and wastes back to it |
Sources for this table: NCI SEER Training: Introduction to the Human Body; NCI SEER Training: Anatomical Terminology; NCI SEER Training: Body Tissues; NCI SEER Training: Epithelial Tissue; NCI SEER Training: Connective Tissue; NIAMS: Scaffold for Growing Cartilage; NCI SEER Training: Membranes; NCI SEER Training: Anatomy of the Skin; NCI SEER Training: Layers of the Skin; NCI SEER Training: Introduction to the Skeletal System; NCI SEER Training: Divisions of the Skeleton; NCI SEER Training: Articulations; NCI SEER Training: Muscle Types; NCI SEER Training: Structure of Skeletal Muscle; LibreTexts Human Biology, 15.2: Introduction to the Muscular System; NCI SEER Training: Organization of the Nervous System; NCI SEER Training: Nerve Tissue; NICHD: Astrocytes regulate signal speeds of neurons; LibreTexts Human Biology, 11.6: Peripheral Nervous System; LibreTexts Human Biology, 11.7: Human Senses; NIDCD: How Do We Hear?; NCI SEER Training: Pituitary and Pineal Glands; NCI SEER Training: Thyroid and Parathyroid Glands; NCI SEER Training: Adrenal Gland; NCI SEER Training: Pancreas: Islets of Langerhans; NCI SEER Training: Characteristics of Hormones; NIDDK: Insulin Resistance and Prediabetes; NIDDK: Low Blood Glucose (Hypoglycemia); NCI SEER Training: Structure of the Heart; NCI SEER Training: Physiology of the Heart; NHLBI: How Blood Flows through the Heart; NCI SEER Training: Classification and Structure of Blood Vessels; MedlinePlus: Blood; LibreTexts Human Biology, 17.6: Blood Types; NCI SEER Training: Introduction to the Lymphatic System; NCI SEER Training: Spleen; NCI SEER Training: Thymus; NCI SEER Training: Conducting Passages; NCI SEER Training: Larynx and Trachea; NCI SEER Training: Bronchi, Bronchial Tree and Lungs; NCI SEER Training: Mechanics of Ventilation; NIDDK: Your Digestive System and How It Works; NCI SEER Training: Small and Large Intestine; NCI SEER Training: Accessory Organs; LibreTexts Human Biology, 18.4: Upper Gastrointestinal Tract; NCI SEER Training: Introduction to the Urinary System; NCI SEER Training: Components of the Urinary System; NCI SEER Training: Urinary Bladder; NIDDK: Your Kidneys and How They Work; NCI SEER Training: Male Duct System; NCI SEER Training: Ovaries; NCI SEER Training: Female Genital Tract; NCI SEER Training: Circulatory Pathways
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HESI A2 Biology, practice set 1: 20 questions on the same screen. Take the sections your school requires first, then come back to the one you find hardest.
Pages this page relies on: Tarrant County College, HESI A2 Exam Information; Central New Mexico Community College, HESI A2 Exam; Germanna Community College, HESI A2 Nursing Entrance Exam Preparation Guide (PDF, updated January 2023); Western Technical College Library, Nursing: TEAS Prep Guide
Checked against the schools' pages and last reviewed November 4, 2026. Found an error? Tell us.