The TEAS 7 Science section gives you 60 minutes for 50 items, which is about 72 seconds each. Anatomy and physiology carries the most weight by a wide margin, with biology, chemistry and scientific reasoning filling out the rest. That distribution should drive your study plan: if you are splitting time evenly across the four topics, you are underweighting the part that decides your score. These eight questions follow the real weighting. Try each one before opening the solution.
Question 1 - Blood flow through the heart
- A. Aorta
- B. Pulmonary vein
- C. Pulmonary artery
- D. Superior vena cava
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Arteries carry blood away from the heart and veins carry it back - that is the definition, and it holds even when the oxygen content flips.
The pulmonary artery leaves the right ventricle carrying deoxygenated blood to the lungs. It is the one artery in the body carrying deoxygenated blood, and the pulmonary vein is the one vein carrying oxygenated blood back.
The aorta carries oxygenated blood out to the body. The superior vena cava carries deoxygenated blood into the right atrium, so it is not carrying blood away.
Answer: C. Pulmonary artery
The pulmonary circuit is the single most tested exception in TEAS A&P. Expect it in some form on your exam.
Question 2 - Gas exchange
- A. Bronchioles
- B. Alveoli
- C. Trachea
- D. Pleural cavity
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The trachea, bronchi and bronchioles are conducting airways - they move air but do not exchange gases. The pleural cavity is the space around the lungs.
Gas exchange happens at the alveoli, tiny sacs wrapped in capillaries. Oxygen diffuses across their extremely thin walls into the blood while carbon dioxide diffuses out, both moving down their concentration gradients.
Answer: B. Alveoli
No active transport is involved. Diffusion alone drives gas exchange, which is why anything that thickens the alveolar wall impairs it so badly.
Question 3 - The nephron
- A. Glomerulus
- B. Proximal convoluted tubule
- C. Loop of Henle
- D. Collecting duct
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The glomerulus is where filtration happens, not reabsorption - it pushes fluid out of the blood into the tubule.
The proximal convoluted tubule is where the bulk of the useful material is pulled back, including essentially all of the glucose and roughly two-thirds of the water and sodium.
The loop of Henle concentrates urine by establishing a salt gradient, and the collecting duct makes the final water adjustment under the influence of ADH - but both handle far less volume than the PCT.
Answer: B. Proximal convoluted tubule
Sequence it: filter at the glomerulus, reclaim in the PCT, concentrate in the loop, fine-tune in the collecting duct.
Question 4 - Endocrine regulation
- A. Calcitonin
- B. Insulin
- C. Parathyroid hormone
- D. Aldosterone
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Parathyroid hormone raises blood calcium by pulling it from bone, increasing reabsorption in the kidneys, and boosting absorption from the gut.
Calcitonin does the opposite - it lowers blood calcium. Insulin regulates glucose, and aldosterone regulates sodium and water.
Answer: C. Parathyroid hormone
PTH and calcitonin are a classic negative-feedback pair. Read the direction in the stem carefully - the wrong one is always sitting right there in the choices.
Question 5 - The autonomic nervous system
- A. Parasympathetic
- B. Sympathetic
- C. Somatic
- D. Central
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All three effects point the same way: the body is mobilizing resources for immediate action and postponing maintenance work. That is the sympathetic division, the fight-or-flight response.
The parasympathetic division produces the opposite pattern - slower heart rate, constricted pupils, active digestion. The somatic system controls voluntary skeletal muscle, and the central nervous system is the brain and spinal cord, not a division of the autonomic system.
Answer: B. Sympathetic
Digestion is the giveaway. Sympathetic activation slows it; parasympathetic activation ramps it up - rest and digest.
Question 6 - DNA and RNA base pairing
- A. Thymine
- B. Uracil
- C. Guanine
- D. Cytosine
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RNA does not contain thymine. Wherever DNA would pair adenine with thymine, RNA substitutes uracil.
So a DNA adenine on the template is transcribed as uracil in the RNA strand. Guanine and cytosine still pair with each other in both molecules.
Answer: B. Uracil
Choice A is the correct answer to a different question - DNA to DNA. Check whether the stem is asking about replication or transcription.
Question 7 - The pH scale
- A. 2 times
- B. 3 times
- C. 100 times
- D. 1,000 times
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The pH scale is logarithmic: each whole unit represents a tenfold change in hydrogen ion concentration.
From pH 6 to pH 3 is a difference of 3 units, so the change is 10 × 10 × 10 = 1,000.
Lower pH means more acidic, so the pH 3 solution is 1,000 times more acidic.
Answer: D. 1,000 times
Choice B is the trap for anyone who subtracts and stops. Count the units, then raise 10 to that power.
Question 8 - Identifying variables
- A. The hand-sanitizing protocol
- B. The infection rate
- C. The six-month study period
- D. The units using the usual routine
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The independent variable is what the researcher deliberately changes - here, which protocol a unit uses.
The dependent variable is the outcome being measured to see whether that change mattered. That is the infection rate.
The six-month period is a study parameter, and the usual-routine units are the control group, not a variable.
Answer: B. The infection rate
Say it as a sentence: does the [independent variable] change the [dependent variable]? Whatever lands in the second slot is your answer.
Bringing it together
Two things decide the TEAS Science section. First, weighting - anatomy and physiology carries the most scored items, so it deserves the most study hours. Second, direction. Most of the A&P traps are correct answers pointing the wrong way: PTH instead of calcitonin, sympathetic instead of parasympathetic, artery instead of vein. Read the stem for direction before you look at the choices, and a large share of those misses disappear.
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All four TEAS sections - Reading, Math, Science, and English and Language Usage - are covered in the full ATI TEAS practice course, with a worked solution on every question.