CNA practice test 2026
Adding the year to the search is the right instinct, because something in this examination did change and most free material has not caught up. This page says what changed, corrects two figures that are repeated almost everywhere, and runs a full-length practice paper on the current blueprint.
2026 paper
60 scored questions. 120 minutes.
That is the full clock the real paper gives you, spent on the 60 questions that count. On the day, 10 unscored pretest items share the same 120 minutes, so the real pace is about 1.7 minutes an item — this run is deliberately a little kinder than that. The questions are dealt in the proportions the content outline publishes rather than evenly. The clock starts when you press the button and submits the test when it runs out, and you will not be told whether an answer was right until the end — that is the point of a full run.
Two numbers that are widely repeated and wrong
Search for this examination and you will be told, confidently and in several places, that it is sixty questions in ninety minutes. Both halves of that are wrong, and the correction is not a detail — it changes how you pace the paper.
The programme’s own content outline states that the written examination is made up of seventy multiple-choice items, ten of which are pretest items on which statistical information is being collected. A candidate handbook states the time: “You will have two (2) hours to complete the Written Examination,” with a warning when fifteen minutes are left. So it is seventy questions presented, sixty scored, and 120 minutes — not sixty and ninety.
Where does sixty come from? It is the number that counts, and it is also the number of questions in the free practice packet. Somewhere along the way the scored count became “the number of questions on the exam”, and the time limit appears to have been carried over from something else entirely. Every figure on this site carries the document it came from and the date that document was read, precisely so that this kind of drift is checkable rather than inherited.
What actually changed: the weights
The examination is built from a content outline that assigns each of the nine content areas a percentage and a number of questions. That outline was revised, and the revision moved real weight between areas: activities of daily living went from 14% of the paper to 22%, and basic nursing skills from 39% to 35%.
The reason it matters for a practice test is arithmetic. Under the old blueprint, nine of sixty scored questions came from hygiene, dressing, feeding, elimination and rest. Under the current one, thirteen do. Practising against the old proportions means under-rehearsing four questions’ worth of the most everyday material on the paper.
This is not obscure. The free practice packet the programme’s own administrator publishes is dated 2021 and prints the superseded outline inside it. Its questions are worth doing; its proportions are a year-count out of date. The practice test below deals the current ones.
What did not change
The subject matter. Infection control, safety, client rights, communication, the limits of the nurse aide role — none of that moved, and material written for the previous outline is still material about the right topics.
Certification also still takes two assessments: this written examination and a skills evaluation performed in front of an evaluator, both of which must be passed. And there is still no published raw passing percentage, so this site reports what you got right by content area and does not tell you whether it would have passed.
Frequently asked
- How many questions are on the 2026 CNA exam?
- Seventy are presented; sixty are scored. The other ten are unscored pretest items and they are not identified to you. Sources that say “60 questions” are quoting the scored count as though it were the length of the paper.
- How long is the CNA written exam — 90 minutes or two hours?
- Two hours. A candidate handbook read on 28 August 2026 states it plainly and adds that you are told when fifteen minutes remain. The ninety-minute figure is repeated in several places and is not supported by any document read for this site.
- Did the CNA exam change for 2026?
- The content outline was revised, and the weights moved: activities of daily living from 14% to 22% of the paper, basic nursing skills from 39% to 35%. The subject matter did not change.
- Is old CNA practice material still useful?
- The questions are, if they were good questions — the topics have not moved. What is out of date is the proportion: material built on the previous outline gives you too little practice on daily living and slightly too much on basic nursing skills.
Practise one area at a time
Untimed sets with the explanation right after each answer — where the timed run tells you what is going wrong, these are where you fix it.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of the documents below, with the date it was read. Requirements change; if a source has moved on since that date, the source is right and this page is out of date.
Allied Exam Bank is independent practice material and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by Credentia, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, or any state nurse aide registry. NNAAP® is a registered trademark of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc. Programme and examination names are used only to describe what this material prepares you for. Every question here is original and none is taken from any actual examination. This site is not a nurse aide training programme and does not prepare you for the skills evaluation.