October 2026 HESI A2 Vocabulary Study Guide

Synonyms Words with the same or nearly the same meaning. On the A2 the choices are usually close, so the right answer is the one that also fits the register and the context, not just the dictionary definition. Read the full guide Antonyms Words with opposite meanings. Watch for choices that are merely different rather than opposite, and for words with more than one opposite depending on sense. Read the full guide Homophones Words that sound alike and are spelled differently: their and there, principal and principle, affect and effect, patience and patients. Confusing them is the single most common written error in healthcare notes, which is why the A2 tests them. Read the full guide Homonyms Words spelled and pronounced the same but carrying different meanings, such as "bear" or "patient". Context is the only way to tell which is meant, so these questions are really reading questions in disguise. Read the full guide Word association Recognising which words belong together in a field or a relationship: a symptom with a condition, a tool with a procedure. Health vocabulary features heavily, which rewards steady exposure more than memorising a list. Read the full guide Affixes Prefixes and suffixes carry consistent meaning, so they let you decode words you have never seen. This is the highest-value topic in the subject for the time it takes: brady is slow, tachy is fast, hyper is above, hypo is below, itis is inflammation, ectomy is removal. Read the full guide Idioms Phrases whose meaning is not the sum of their words. They appear in reading passages as much as in vocabulary items, and the literal reading is always offered as a distractor. Read the full guide Multiple meaning words Common words that mean different things in a clinical context: culture, positive, acute, chronic, discharge. A positive test result is not good news, and the exam tests exactly that gap. Read the full guide Best choices for blanks in a sentence Sentence-completion items where several choices are grammatically fine and only one is right. The deciding factor is usually precision or tone rather than grammar. Read the full guide