FREE Ohio STNA/CNA Practice Test 2026: How the Written + Skills Exam Are Scored

Ohio STNA practice test 2026: how the exam is actually built and scored

If you searched "stna practice test" or "ohio cna practice test," here is the fast answer: Ohio's nurse aide exam, administered by D&S Diversified Technologies (D&SDT) / Headmaster, is a 79-question written knowledge test (90 minutes, 70% to pass) plus a hands-on skills test where you perform 3 or 4 tasks in 35 minutes. That is the current format under the Ohio Nurse Aide Candidate Handbook, Version 27, effective December 1, 2025 -- the handbook you should be studying from right now, because several popular "STNA practice test" pages still describe the format used before October 1, 2020 (hand washing plus four other skills tested as separate, individually scored tasks), per D&S's own 2020 skills-update PDF.

This guide does not re-walk the whole path to becoming a nurse aide in Ohio; our Ohio STNA exam guide already covers training, registration, fees, registry renewal, and career pay in detail. Instead, this article answers the practice-specific question: exactly how are the 79 questions and the skills tasks built, scored, and retested, and which steps are easiest to lose credit on, verified directly against the current D&S handbook and Ohio Revised Code.

Try OpenExamPrep's free Ohio CNA practice questions first, then come back to this breakdown to understand why each question and task is built the way it is.

Wait -- is it "STNA" or "CNA" now?

Both terms describe the same credential. Current law and Ohio's own registry use certified nurse aide, or CNA: Ohio Revised Code 3721.32(E) -- the subsection added by Senate Bill 144, effective October 24, 2024, and kept in the current version effective September 30, 2025 (House Bill 96) -- says an individual listed in good standing on the Ohio Nurse Aide Registry "shall be referred to as a certified nurse aide," and only registry-listed individuals may use the designation "certified nurse aide" or "CNA." The current D&S candidate handbook uses the same terminology throughout, but D&S's own site still hosts older documents, like its 2020 skills-update PDF, with "STNA" in the title.

In practice, training programs, employers, and search engines still say "STNA" out of habit, which is why so many Ohio searches still use it. Use whichever word you want when you search; just make sure any practice material you study from matches the current exam content, not a page describing the pre-October-2020 skills format.

How the 79-question written test is actually built

The Knowledge Test is not one fixed form -- it is assembled from a bank across 12 ODH-approved subject areas, and the Version 27 handbook publishes the exact question count per area:

That totals 79 questions, 90 minutes, 70% or better to pass -- about 56 correct answers. A useful practice habit is to quiz yourself in these same proportions rather than an even split, since Basic Nursing Skills and Personal Care each carry more weight than any other single area.

Four original practice items, one per high-weight area, with the reasoning behind each answer:

1. Basic Nursing Skills. A resident's intake and output record shows 240 mL of juice, 180 mL of water, and a 300 mL urinary output for the shift. What should you document as total intake? Answer: 420 mL. Only fluids the resident consumed count as intake; output is tracked separately, and mixing the two is a common recording error.
2. Personal Care. When providing perineal care for a female resident, which direction should you wipe? Answer: front to back, using a clean section of the washcloth or wipe for each stroke. Wiping back to front risks moving bacteria toward the urethra.
3. Safety. After repositioning a resident, you notice the call light is out of reach. What should you do before leaving the room? Answer: place the call light within the resident's reach. This is one of the "always-tested" closing steps on the skills exam, not only a knowledge-test topic.
4. Infection Control. You are about to remove soiled gloves after an incontinence-care task. What is the correct first step? Answer: grasp the outside of one glove near the cuff and peel it off, turning it inside out. Touching the outside of a soiled glove with a bare hand defeats the purpose of removing it.

These are original teaching examples, not Headmaster test items -- the real exam questions are not published. For more practice at the current 2026 exam format, answer 79 questions in a row from the free Ohio CNA practice bank, using your own 90-minute timer.

The skills-test mechanic almost no guide explains

Here is the detail that most "STNA skills videos" and practice sites miss: your first skills task is not randomly drawn from all 21 tasks. This has been true since October 1, 2020, when D&S restructured the skills exam around embedded hand washing (see the 2020 skills-update PDF). The handbook assigns one mandatory task from a fixed pool of five, every time, and your remaining 2 or 3 tasks are then drawn randomly from the Skill Task listing:

Every task in that pool embeds a hand-washing step, and all five involve perineal, catheter, or output-measurement technique. Because one of them is guaranteed to appear on your exam, they deserve more of your practice time than the rest of the 21-task list, even though generic study material treats all 21 tasks as equally likely to appear.

Easy-to-lose steps inside the five guaranteed tasks

Across these five guaranteed tasks, here are steps worth extra attention -- not because data shows they are missed most often, but because they sit next to the headline skill instead of being the headline skill itself:

• Output must match within 25 mL, not just get recorded. The recording form for the bedpan and urinary-drainage tasks is signed before you start, during the equipment demonstration -- signing it is not itself a scored step. What is scored: your measured output reading must be within 25 mL of the RN Test Observer's own reading (bedpan step 23, urinary-bag step 26 in the current task list).
• Washcloth technique, not one universal direction rule. The male perineal-care task's bolded steps require a clean portion of the washcloth for every stroke, with no front-to-back direction step. The female task's bolded step is more specific: clean the labia from top to bottom AND use a clean washcloth portion for each stroke, scored as one combined step -- getting the direction right while reusing a soiled section still fails it.
• Doffing order is one of the few sequence-dependent steps. Steps are not order-dependent unless a step explicitly says BEFORE or AFTER, but PPE removal is an exception: the handbook step reads "remove gloves before the gown," so doffing gloves after the gown fails that step even though most steps on the task carry no required order.
• Finishing hand washing without recontaminating. Hand washing happens at the end of each of the five first tasks, and the bolded key step is not simply washing -- it is finishing without recontaminating your hands. Turning off the faucet with a wet paper towel, per the handbook, counts as recontamination and fails that step even when the wash itself was done correctly.
• Verbalizing instead of doing. The handbook is explicit that all steps must actually be demonstrated, and that steps which are only verbalized or simulated will not count. Saying "I would now check the water temperature" does not satisfy a step that requires physically checking it.

None of the 21 tasks are secret; the full checklist with every step is public in the handbook. The steps above are easy to lose credit on specifically because they sit beside a skill a candidate otherwise performs well.

What actually happens if you fail and retest

If you fail the skills portion, the retest is not a fresh random draw. The handbook states that one of your retest tasks will be a task you previously failed, and the test again opens with one of the five mandatory first tasks. Functionally, the task you struggled with on your first attempt is the task to drill hardest before a retest -- it is coming back.

Fee-wise, you only pay for the portion you retake: $30 for a knowledge-only retake, $40 for an audio knowledge-only retake, or $90 for a skills-only retake, each less than the $120 combined price. See our Ohio STNA exam guide for the full fee table by component. You also have a hard ceiling: three total attempts at each portion within two years of completing your 75-hour training program, after which you must retrain before testing again.

Two smaller logistics facts worth knowing before test day: scratch paper and a basic calculator are available from the Knowledge Test Proctor for math questions, but both must be returned before you leave the room; and if you believe a result was scored incorrectly, you can request a review for a non-refundable $25 deposit, refunded only if the review finds in your favor.

The audio exam has a catch most candidates don't expect

If you request the audio (oral) knowledge exam -- an extra $10 charge, $40 total -- only the first 59 of the 79 questions are read aloud. The remaining 20 must be answered without audio support, specifically to assess English reading comprehension. An approved ADA accommodation changes this so all 79 questions are read aloud. If you are considering the audio option purely for comfort rather than a documented need, budget real practice time for reading unaided, because a fifth of the exam will not be read to you regardless.

Where "Ohio STNA skills videos" searches go wrong

Many skills-demonstration videos online were filmed for a different state's checklist, an older Ohio task list, or a national program such as NNAAP -- the step order, bolded critical steps, and even which tasks exist at all can differ from Ohio's current 21-task list. Watching a mismatched video can teach a technique that looks correct but fails a specific Ohio step, such as the wrong washcloth technique, a missed 25 mL output match, or an extra "standalone" hand-washing task that Ohio has not tested separately since 2020.

A safer self-practice method: print the task list from the current handbook, recruit a partner to play "RN Test Observer" with a highlighted copy of the bolded critical steps, and have them mark every step you skip or only verbalize instead of physically demonstrating. Our Ohio CNA cheat sheet summarizes the current domain weights and the five guaranteed tasks so you can drill the highest-value material first; our Ohio CNA flashcards reinforce the broader knowledge-test topics for spaced review, and our Ohio CNA study guide covers each of the 12 knowledge areas in depth; for the full step list of every skill task, use the handbook itself.

A one-week practice plan that mirrors test day

• Days 1-2: Answer 79 questions from the free practice bank in one sitting, using your own 90-minute timer; log every miss by subject area so you know where your 70% is actually coming from.
• Day 3: Drill the five mandatory first-tasks with a partner, focusing on the 25 mL output match, washcloth technique, and PPE doffing order, not only the headline skill.
• Day 4: Run the remaining tasks on the 21-task list once each, timing yourself to stay inside a realistic pace for 3 or 4 tasks in 35 minutes.
• Day 5: Answer another 79 questions from the practice bank with your own 90-minute timer; review every wrong answer against the subject-area table above.
• Day 6: Repeat only your two weakest skills tasks and your two weakest knowledge domains.
• Day 7: Light review only -- read the handbook's testing-attire and ID requirements once more, and rest.

OpenExamPrep's practice questions are independent STNA/CNA practice material written by OpenExamPrep, not official D&SDT-Headmaster test items and not a guarantee of your results. They exist to help you rehearse the current Version 27 content before test day.

Official sources

• Ohio Nurse Aide Candidate Handbook, Version 27 (PDF, effective December 1, 2025) -- D&S Diversified Technologies / Headmaster
• Ohio STNA Updates 8.2020 (PDF) -- D&S's 2020 notice restructuring the skills exam around embedded hand washing
• D&SDT-Headmaster Ohio CNA testing page
• Ohio Revised Code 3721.32, State Nurse Aide Registry -- current CNA/certified-nurse-aide terminology
• Ohio Nurse Aide Registry lookup