There's just one step left to get into a nursing school. You need to give the TEAS 7 exam and get an excellent score. This exam measures your Reading, Math, Science, and English and Language Usage skills. TEAS 7 evaluates your readiness to enter the nursing field and learn the material in the first year of nursing school.  

Each section in the test is essential for checking your overall competence for becoming a nurse. This article will discuss the English and Language Usage Section of the TEAS 7 Exam. Also, we will examine the differences between TEAS 6 and TEAS 7, the number of questions in each subsection, the types of questions, and their preparation.

Why are you being tested on your English?

Why am I being tested for English in an exam for nursing? I'm sure you've asked yourself that question.

There is a simple explanation. A nurse is a crucial part of any health care team. They not only take care of patients but also coordinate with other medical professionals to provide the best care. Therefore, they must have excellent communication skills to perform these tasks efficiently.

As a nurse, you will need to take notes, explain medical conditions, and relay information about the patient. Therefore, it will require you to have a good hold on English and Language Usage.

Hence, TEAS 7 has an English and Language Usage portion to test your competence in understanding and communicating in English.

Teas 7: What's new in English and Language Usage?

This section of TEAS 7 has not changed significantly from TEAS 6. Only the number of questions and the amount of time provided to you in this section are different. In this section, you will have 37 minutes to answer 37 questions. From these 37 questions, 33 will be scored, and 4 will be unscored. However, you will not be able to determine if a question is scored or unscored. So, it would be best if you attempted each question to the best of your capacity.

Subsections in the English and Language Usage Section of TEAS 7:

There are 3 subsections in the English and Language Usage Section of TEAS 7. These subsections are Conventions of Standard English, Knowledge of Language, and Using Language and Vocabulary.

Your job while solving these questions will be to find and correct errors or recognize the author's style and intent for writing. Let's go over what to expect in each subject category and how to correctly solve each of them while taking the test to help you better prepare for the test.

Conventions of Standard English:

1. What to expect?

It is the first category of the English and Language Usage portion, consisting of 12 questions. This portion mainly deals with the grammatical expectations of using English. Hence it tests your knowledge to organize sentences, punctuations, and spellings in various ways. While solving this section, you will have to:

• Use standard English spelling conventions.
• Use standard English pronunciation conventions.
• Structure your sentences correctly.

2. How to solve it?

To solve this section, you must read each question carefully. Because of the limited time, it is very tempting to skim over the questions. It can, however, cause you to miss some essential words that could change the meaning of the sentence. 

The key is to focus on details and read everything carefully. Regardless of how comfortable you are with English, it would be best if you still practiced for this section to avoid making mistakes when reading or answering the questions.

Knowledge of Language:

1. What to expect?
   

You need to compose and organize your thoughts clearly to communicate effectively. This subsection of the test contains 11 questions that assess your ability to recognize and analyze how language can be framed and structured to make a point. The test will evaluate your skills to:

• Clarify writing using grammar.
• Assess whether language meets the needs of a particular audience.
• Create a well-organized paragraph.

2. How to solve it?

As in the previous section, paying attention and reading carefully is the key. Also, to do good in this section, you have to do a lot of critical reading while you are preparing. It will involve digging deep into the author's tone, structure, and complexity in writing and asking whether you can improve the writing or write more simply. While studying, this complex thinking will prepare you for any question the exam may throw at you.

Using Language and Vocabulary to Express Ideas in Writing:

1. What to expect?

This section will test your ability to recognize words and define them precisely. This subsection will have 10 questions that will test how well you can: 

• Communicate effectively using the elements of the writing process.
• Analyze word parts to determine their meanings.
  

2. How to solve it?

You might think that you will have to memorize many words and their meanings to do good in this section. But that is not the case. Instead, you will have to read the question critically to understand the best possible meaning of the word or the answer in the given context. Though having the basic knowledge of word meanings will help, you need to have critical thinking skills to apply the proper context to the word and derive the appropriate meaning. So make sure you have practiced your critical reading skills before taking the test. 

Being better at communicating will help you become a better nurse. Hence, doing good in the English and Language Usage portion is crucial from a scoring point of view and will help you perform your nursing tasks effectively. 

Now that you have the knowledge about each section of TEAS 7 and how to face it, you can start making the appropriate preparations to get a high score on the exam.