TEAS English: vocabulary and the writing process study guide

What this topic actually asks of you

Using language and vocabulary to express ideas in writing is the third of the three English and Language Usage sub-content areas on the ATI TEAS, and ATI publishes its size: English and Language Usage carries 33 scored questions, 22% of the exam, and it is timed separately — 37 minutes. This sub-area is 10 of those scored questions, 7%.

ATI files two objectives under it, and they are the two halves of a writer's toolbox — so this page teaches both, in the order the exam meets them.

• A word you have never met. The list of parts is closed and small, so it can be learned once and used on words you have never seen. The root carries the body part a term is about — cardi- is always the heart, hepat- is always the liver — and that meaning never moves. The prefix standing in front of a root points a direction at it: brady- slows whatever it is attached to, pre- places it earlier. The suffix at the end says what is being done or described, and it is the part that tells you whether the term names a condition, a procedure or a specialty. Learn the three jobs separately and a word you have never seen still tells you what it means.
• A draft you are working on. These passes work on a draft in order, and each one is named by what it changes. To revise is to change what the writing says — the order of the ideas, the point a reader is meant to take, the facts to add and the facts to cut; the pass itself is revising. To edit is to change how the writing is punctuated, spelled and made to agree, with the ideas left exactly as they are; the pass itself is editing. To proofread is to read the finished text once more for what the editing pass missed, and that last pass is proofreading. The whole half of the topic rests on one distinction: revision changes what the writing says; editing changes how it is written.

Two things follow, and they shape how to study this.

• Every item prints the fact that decides it. No passage to read, no context to rebuild. A word-part item prints the term, or the parts in capitals, and the answer follows from a meaning you either know or do not; a writing-process item prints the move a writer made and asks where that move belongs, or what to do next. Find the printed fact and the item is decided; miss it and the item feels like a guess.
• Most wrong options are built out of real parts, read or joined wrongly. A distractor here is another prefix from the same table taken for the one that is keyed, the partner of a look-alike pair, the right term with one part swapped, a string the real parts cannot spell together, the wrong stage of the process, a reword that changes nothing, or a recheck of a page the cue does not name. Naming which one caught you is what turns a miss into a method.

Our practice items are single-answer and text-only. The real ATI TEAS also uses other item types: ATI's own content outline lists multiple-choice, multiple-select, fill-in-the-blank numeric, hot spot and ordered-response items. Elk Ridge Academy's practice items are single-answer only, and they carry no pictures or diagrams, so treat the rule, not any one format, as the thing you are drilling.

How a practice item is laid out. A word-part item prints one term, or one definition, and several candidates; the parts it names are printed in capitals (BRADY-, -ITIS, HEPATITIS), and those capitals are the premise, not decoration — every one of them is a part from this page's tables. A writing-process item prints a short account of a writer at work and several moves, stages or sentences. Two habits carry both kinds: find the printed fact before you read the options, and say the fault out loud on every option you leave.

Where the word parts come from — and the credit we owe. Nearly every word-part meaning on this page rests on the MedlinePlus Understanding Medical Words tutorial (U.S. National Library of Medicine, a U.S. government work in the public domain), restated in our own words with our own examples: nothing is copied and no figure is reproduced. pulmon-, arteri-, -algia, -ology and -ologist are standard medical-dictionary meanings rather than tutorial entries. The acknowledgement the library asks for is printed here — Courtesy of MedlinePlus from the National Library of Medicine. The writing-process half is our own method, and the foot of this page carries the full source list.

The six procedures

Six ways the bank asks those two things, and every practice item on this topic is one of them.

1. A part's meaning on its own. The stem prints a part in capitals and one term that carries it, and the answer is what the part means: a- without, poly- many, tachy- fast.
2. A root carries the body part. The term names a body part and one of the definitions offered names it back: cardi- heart, nephr- kidney, osteo- bone.
3. A suffix at the end says what is being done or described. The candidate endings are all of the same kind — a condition beside a symptom, a procedure beside a specialty — and getting the kind right usually decides the item.
4. A term built from its parts. The stem prints a definition and the parts that build the word; the answer is the word they spell, and a wrong candidate is usually that word with one part swapped, or with the joining vowel misplaced.
5. A move placed in the writing process. A writer does something to a draft, and the answer is the stage that move belongs to — or the stage that comes next, or the one two steps along.
6. The action that fixes what the writer found. The stem reports a fault the writer has noticed, and the answer is the move that repairs it: revise when the writing's meaning has to change, edit when only its mechanics have to.

Reference tables: the tables this whole topic stands on

Everything on this page comes out of the six reference tables below: the parts in Table A, B and C, the stages in Table D, and the terms in Table E, which are the parts doing their work inside real words. Table F, after them, is not a table of facts to learn but of the faults a wrong option carries.

Table A — the prefixes (a prefix goes in front of the root)

A prefix standing in front of a root points a direction at it: brady- slows whatever it is attached to, and pre- places it earlier.

Table B — the roots (a root carries the body part)

Table C — the suffixes (a suffix closes the word)

Table D — the writing process, five passes in order

The stages happen in this order, and the order is the fact several items ask about.

What the five names rest on. ATI publishes no stage names for this objective: the content outline states the skill — use the writing process — and names no passes (ATI's Content Outline). The five names below are the plain ones process texts use, and each is chosen because it says what that pass changes; the order is the part this page holds you to.

Aliases you may meet. planning is what many books call prewriting. And after proofreading, sources differ: some add a publishing pass (sharing or submitting the finished piece) and others fold it into the last read — this page ends at proofreading, so a stem that prints a sharing step is still answered from the final read you know.

Table E — the parts at work inside real terms

Each row takes one part from the tables above and shows it inside a word you may meet. Read the rows as a whole and the pattern shows: the root says what the word is about, and the parts around it say how, which way, and what is being done to it — a rule that holds even when a word itself is new to you.

The combining vowel adds no meaning. Some terms carry an o between two parts (gastroscopy, cardiomegaly), and it is there to join the parts, not to add a fact. Keep it between two roots, and before an ending that starts with a consonant (cardiomegaly, gastroscopy); drop it before an ending that starts with a vowel (gastritis, neuralgia). The fault a wrong option carries is the vowel in the wrong place: a candidate that keeps the o where a vowel-initial ending follows, or drops it before a consonant-initial ending, is a string the parts do not spell.

Table F — the faults a wrong option carries

Each wrong candidate on this topic is one of these, and naming the one that caught you is the whole method.

The rules in words, each with one right and one wrong sentence

Six rules, and each pair of sentences shows the rule working and the rule broken. Every sentence here was written for this page.

1. Read a part against the table, not against the sound of the word. Right: Because brady- is the rate part that means slow, a note that says the heart rate is slower than normal is describing bradycardia. Wrong: Because brady- sounds heavy, a note that says the heart rate is slower than normal is describing tachycardia.
2. Name the body part the root carries before you look at the endings. Right: nephr- is the kidney, so nephritis is inflammation of the kidney. Wrong: nephr- looks like neur-, so nephritis is inflammation of the nerves.
3. Read the ending for what is being done, and its kind before its edge. Right: An ending that means a field of study names a field, not a condition, so cardiology is the study of the heart, not a condition of it. Wrong: An ending that means a field of study is a condition, so cardiology is a condition of the heart.
4. Build the term out of its parts, in order, and keep every part. Right: poly- many, neur- nerve, -itis inflammation — no joining o, because -itis starts with a vowel — so polyneuritis is inflammation of many nerves. Wrong: neur- nerve, -itis inflammation, prefix ignored — polyneuritis is a single inflamed nerve.
5. Place the move by what it changes, then check the stage's position. Right: The writer is deciding which of two findings to lead with, so that move belongs to revising, and it comes before the spelling pass. Wrong: The writer is deciding which of two findings to lead with, so that move belongs to proofreading, which is the pass that reads a finished text.
6. Revise when the meaning has to change; edit when only the mechanics have to. Right: The note reports that a dose was left out of the sentence, so the fix is to revise it. Wrong: The note reports that a dose was left out of the sentence, so the fix is to edit its punctuation.

A five-step method for any E.3 item

Use the same five moves every time, on both halves of the topic.

1. Say what the item is really asking. A meaning of one part, the body part a root names, the job an ending does, a whole word built from parts, a stage a move belongs to, or the action that repairs a reported fault. That one question removes the options that are answers to a different item.
2. Write the printed fact down in your own words. The part and the term it appears in for a word-part item; what the writer noticed and what has to change for a process item. Both are printed in the stem, every time.
3. Answer from the tables before you answer from the options. Give the meaning, the word, the stage or the action yourself, then look. A version you built is much harder to talk yourself out of than a candidate that merely looks familiar.
4. Then read every option and say its fault. Another part read as the answer, the partner of a look-alike pair, one part swapped, a joining vowel dropped, the wrong stage, the stage the stem already named, the other half of revise-and-edit, a reorder that changes nothing, a reword that changes nothing, a recheck of the wrong page.
5. Check the direction of the question one last time. Which part means what is a different question from which term those parts build, and what does this move do is a different question from which pass comes next. On this topic the most common miss is the right answer to a slightly different question.

On a word-part item, steps 2 and 3 are a physical routine: put the parts in order on the page, write each part's meaning under it, and then read the definition back off the parts. On a writing-process item they are the other way round: name what changed in the draft, and the stage follows from the change — content is revising, mechanics is editing, and planning is the one pass that happens before any words exist.

The eight worked examples

Each example is written for this page, on its own word or its own short account, so nothing here is a practice item you will meet in the bank.

1. A root and an ending working together

A discharge note reads nephritis.

Worked: Split it: nephr- + -itis. The root is the kidney; the ending is inflammation. Read them in order — inflammation of the kidney — and stop there. Nothing in the word says which kidney, or how the inflammation started, and a candidate that adds either one is answering a question the stem did not ask.

Trap: nephr- and neur- differ by two letters and sit beside each other in an alphabetized table. If nephritis and neuropathy look alike to you, the fault is a scan with no body part in it: say the root's meaning out loud before you look at anything else on the line.

2. The pair that differs by one idea

Two notes arrive: one reads hypertension, the other hypoglycemia.

Worked: Both open with a quantity part and differ only in which side of the usual level they sit on. hyper- is too much, so pressure too high is hypertension. hypo- is too little, so sugar too low is hypoglycemia. One part decides both words.

Trap: The two parts look nearly identical on the page, and a reader who has met the words in speech often remembers the shape and not the direction. Decide the direction from the note's own detail — the pressure is high, the sugar is low — before you decide which part is in the word.

3. The part that takes something away

A monitor reads a heart rate slower than the normal resting rate, and the note adds apnea.

Worked: A heart rate slower than the normal resting rate is bradycardia — brady- is the part that carries the slow rate. apnea is built differently: a- takes the breathing away, so a term that opens with it describes breathing that has stopped rather than breathing that is slow or fast.

Trap: a- and anti- are the look-alike pair here, and only one of them means absence. If a candidate says the term is describing something being opposed, ask what is doing the opposing — in a term built on a-, nothing is.

4. Two roots in one word

The phrase is "disease of the bones and the joints", and the term is osteoarthropathy.

Worked: osteo- names bone and arthr- names joint, so both roots have to be read before the ending. -pathy then names the disease, and the word it builds is the disease of both structures the phrase names — which is exactly what the definition says.

Trap: When a word carries two roots, the definition counts both of them. A candidate that keeps only one root is a real word that answers only half the phrase, and half a phrase is a wrong answer.

5. Endings that sound alike and are not

A report lists appendectomy and then, two lines down, angioplasty.

Worked: -ectomy is surgical removal and -plasty is surgical repair. Both endings describe something being done, which is why they belong in one family — and they are not interchangeable: removal takes the thing out, repair puts it back together.

Trap: Both endings promise a procedure, so a reader who stops at "something is being done" chooses between two candidates that are both procedures. Read to the end of the ending: removal and repair are different actions, and the stem names one of them.

6. Pain, and the disease that causes it

A chart note reads neuralgia; a second line reads neuropathy.

Worked: -algia is pain and -pathy is disease. The same root, two endings, two different claims: neuralgia is pain along a nerve, and neuropathy is disease of the nerves, which may or may not hurt.

Trap: Aching and disease travel together so often that either ending can feel right. Ask what the sentence is describing — a sensation or a condition — and pick the ending that says that and nothing more.

7. The study of a part, and the person who studies it

Two lines of a course list read cardiology and cardiologist.

Worked: -ology is a field of study and -ologist is a specialist in it. The root is the same in both, so the ending carries the whole difference: cardiology is what is studied and cardiologist is who studies it. The same pair pattern turns neurology into a field and a specialist.

Trap: The two endings differ by three letters and both end in -ology when written quickly. Read the whole ending: the -ist is the person, and a person is never a field of study.

8. One draft, five passes

A student writes a short reply to a complaint: first deciding who it is for and what it has to say (planning), then putting a whole version down without stopping to correct it (drafting), then moving the strongest finding to the front and cutting two facts that do not belong (revising), then fixing the spelling of a name and the punctuation of a list (editing), then reading the finished reply once more before sending it (proofreading).

Worked: Each pass is named by what it changes. Moving a finding and cutting a fact change what the reply says, so they are revising. Fixing a name and a list changes only how it is written, so they are editing. The last read changes nothing until it finds something, which is why it is the last pass.

Trap: Reordering is a revising move, but a reorder that leaves the reported fault in place is the wrong fix. Ask what the move repairs, not what it changes.

The traps, collected

• Two parts that point the same way, in opposite directions. hyper- beside hypo-, pre- beside post-, brady- beside tachy-. These pairs are the reason a hard item names its partner in the stem: preoperative belongs to the time before an operation and postoperative to the time after it, and a reader who knows one half of a pair will talk themselves into the other if the note's own detail is not read first.
• A root that names a vessel. ven- is a vein and arteri- is an artery, and the two words they build — venous and arterial — are both adjectives about a vessel. The root decides which one, and a candidate built on the other root is a real word about the wrong tube.
• The inflammation ending, on a body part you did not expect. Any root plus -itis is about that part: dermatitis is about skin, gastritis about the stomach, hepatitis about the liver. When the stem's term is unfamiliar, the root is the whole answer, and the ending only tells you that something is inflamed.
• The ending that claims a state rather than an inflammation. -osis names a condition or state, which is a claim about what something is, not about what is inflamed. tendonitis and a term built on -osis can sit in the same item and say different things, and the difference is the ending.
• A blood condition that is not a count. -emia is about the blood, so septicemia describes the blood carrying an infection. A candidate that turns the ending into a number of cells is answering a question the word does not ask.
• An ending that claims size, next to an ending that claims pain. -megaly is enlargement, as in cardiomegaly; -algia is pain, as in myalgia. Both say something is wrong, so an item keyed to one of them is decided only by reading the ending exactly to its last letter.
• An examination, and where the instrument is pointed. -scopy is an examination with an instrument. endoscopy and microscopy are both examinations; what separates them is the part in front of the ending, not the ending itself.
• The adjective ending that names a place. cardiac means belonging to the heart and pulmonary means belonging to the lungs. A word built this way says where, not what condition — so a candidate that turns one of them into a disease has changed the claim the ending makes.
• The stem's own stage, offered back to you. A writing-process item often prints the stage the writer is in and asks what belongs to the next stage or to the action that repairs what the writer found. The printed stage is the most common wrong answer on the topic: answer what the stem asks for, not what it has already told you.
• Revising and editing, swapped. Moving a fact, cutting a fact and reordering the ideas change what the writing says, so they are revising. Spelling, punctuation and agreement change how it is written, so they are editing. If a candidate's action changes the meaning, it cannot be the editing answer, and the reverse holds too.
• A candidate that reorders and fixes nothing. Order changes look like work. Say what the candidate makes true that was not true before; if the answer is nothing, the candidate is the distractor.

Answer-choice strategies: three moves for when the answer will not come

1. Build the answer before you read the options. Put the parts in order and write their meanings under them, or name the change the writer made. Then find your own version among the candidates. A version you built is much harder to argue out of than a candidate that merely sounds clinical.
2. Name the fault on every option you leave. Another part read as the answer, the partner of a look-alike pair, one part swapped, a joining vowel gone, the wrong stage, the stage the stem already named, the other half of revise-and-edit, a reorder that fixes nothing, a reword that changes nothing, a recheck of the wrong page. An option you can fault is an option you can leave.
3. Re-read the last few words of the question. Which part means is a different question from which term these parts build, and what does this move do is a different question from which pass comes next. On this topic the most common miss is the right answer to a slightly different question.

How to practice this

• Practice by procedure, not by item. Drill one procedure at a time, then mix. The table is what you are drilling; the word changes and the part does not.
• Write the parts out on paper. A term split into nephr- / -itis with two meanings under it is a term you can answer for; a term read as one block is a guess.
• Keep a list of the parts you keep misreading. If most of your misses are the two quantity parts or the two vessel roots, the fix is step 3 of the method, not more vocabulary.
• Work the free vocabulary practice set with a pencil, and write the fault on every option you leave. The set carries items from all six procedures.
• Keep this guide open beside the set. When an item misses, find the table row that covers it, read the row, and say the part's meaning back in your own words.
• Time yourself across a set once the tables are steady. ATI publishes the English and Language Usage section as 37 minutes, and 33 of the section's questions are scored — Conventions of Standard English carries 12 of them, Knowledge of language 11, and the vocabulary sub-area 10.

Where to go next

• Next topic — the TEAS hub — all twelve sub-content areas, in blueprint order.
• The rest of the section — Knowledge of language and Conventions of standard English.
• The reference table — the word parts — the prefixes, suffixes and roots the vocabulary items are built from.

This topic sits inside the English and language usage section and carries ATI's published 7% of the exam and 10 of the section's 33 scored items — the blueprint's own split.