If you have hunted around for free CNA practice tests, CNAplus.com almost certainly came up in the results. The platform pitches itself as a no-paywall study hub for nursing assistant candidates, with practice questions split across the same skill categories the NNAAP and Prometric exams use. That sounds great on paper. The question we get from readers is whether it is actually good enough to lean on as a primary prep tool, or whether it should sit alongside paid books like Saunders and the free drills we publish here.
We spent a week running through the CNA Plus platform: every category, every question we could surface, the skills video library, and the score reports. Then we compared it head-to-head against the CNA Basic Nursing Skills drills on Practice Test Geeks and a few popular paid options. This review is honest. CNA Plus does some things really well — and a few things you should know about before you build a study plan around it.
Short version. CNA Plus is genuinely free, the question banks are sizable, and the eight category split mirrors what state boards test. It is best used as a high-volume drill platform after you have learned the concepts somewhere else. Read on for the full breakdown.
CNA Plus is a single-purpose practice site. No fluff, no marketplace, no subscription upsell hiding behind a second click. You land on the homepage, you pick a skill category, you start answering questions. The interface looks dated — think 2014 forum theme — but it loads fast and works on phones, which matters when you are sneaking in drill sessions between clinical shifts.
The site organizes content into the eight categories every state CNA exam touches:
That split is not arbitrary. It matches the NNAAP exam blueprint that Pearson VUE administers in most states, and it is close to what Prometric uses in the remaining ones. If you finish all eight CNA Plus banks you will have touched every domain the written portion can hit.
The platform refuses to lock content behind email signups. Click a category, answer questions, see explanations. That zero-friction loop is genuinely rare in CNA prep. Most free sites force you through a signup wall after question 5, then push paid bundles. CNA Plus does not.
Question quality is uneven, and we want to be straight about that. The Basic Nursing Skills and ADLs categories are strong. Stems are clinically realistic, distractors look like real charting mistakes a CNA could plausibly make, and the explanations cite the correct procedural step. Anyone drilling these two banks will get genuine value.
The Communication and Client Rights banks are also solid. Those topics map to clear regulatory language (OBRA, HIPAA, state nurse practice acts) so the questions stay grounded in what is actually testable.
Where the platform gets weaker is in Restorative Skills and Emotional/Mental Health Needs. A handful of questions feel paraphrased from older test prep books — the situational stems are thin, and a few explanations skip the reasoning entirely. They tell you the right answer but not why the others are wrong. That is the single biggest weakness compared to our Restorative Services drill, which explains every distractor.
Spiritual and Cultural Needs is the smallest bank by question count. It is fine for exposure but you should not rely on it as your main source for that domain. Real exam questions here often involve nuance around dietary, religious, and end-of-life preferences. The CNA Plus bank trends toward surface-level definitions.
Strong. Vital signs, infection control, and measurement and recording questions match real exam difficulty. The best-developed bank on the site. Stems are clinically realistic and the distractors look like the kinds of charting mistakes real CNAs make on the floor.
Strong. Realistic resident scenarios covering bathing, dressing, feeding, toileting, and ambulation. Good for understanding the why behind procedure order, not just the steps themselves. Useful even for candidates already working as nurse aides.
Solid. Clear reporting and charting questions, plus verbal and non-verbal interaction scenarios. Maps well to real workplace situations like shift handoff and family interactions. Bank size is adequate for full drilling.
Solid. Tied to OBRA regulatory language, so the answers stay defensible and testable. Useful for the legal-leaning exam questions about privacy, dignity, and refusal of care that trip up unprepared candidates.
Solid. Covers HIPAA, scope of practice boundaries, and mandated reporting requirements. Some content overlap with the Rights bank, which means drilling both reinforces the same concepts twice — useful, not redundant.
Mixed. Strong on range of motion and basic transfer technique, but weaker on prosthetic device care and ambulation aid scenarios. Explanations occasionally skip the reasoning. Supplement with the PTG Restorative drill for full coverage.
Mixed. Dementia care and behavior management questions are decent and clinically grounded. Depression recognition and resident coping scenarios feel underdeveloped and surface-level. Worth drilling but verify with a textbook chapter.
Weakest bank on the platform. Small total question count and the existing items tend toward surface-level definitions rather than realistic resident-care scenarios. Definitely supplement with a textbook section or a dedicated PTG drill for this domain.
CNA Plus also hosts a video library covering the 22 manual skills states test during the clinical portion of the exam. These are the demonstrations: handwashing, bed-making with the patient in it, perineal care, feeding a resident, transferring from bed to wheelchair, and so on. The videos are short, usually under three minutes each, and they follow the same step-order Pearson VUE evaluators score against.
The production is basic — single camera, no fancy editing — but the technique is correct. For visual learners trying to internalize step sequence (clean side to dirty side, raise the bed before transferring, lock the wheels), watching a few of these the night before clinicals can lock in muscle memory better than reading a procedure list. We would put the videos on par with the freely available Red Cross demonstrations, which is a real compliment.
One caveat: the library does not cover regional variations. If your state requires a specific glove-removal technique or a particular way to record vital signs, the CNA Plus videos may differ slightly. Always check your state's exam guide first.
People ask us this directly, so we will answer it directly. CNA Plus and Practice Test Geeks both publish free CNA drill content. They serve slightly different purposes.
CNA Plus is built for volume. Pick a category, sit down, work through it. There is no time limit, no score-tracking history across sessions (unless you create an account), and no breakdown by sub-topic. It is essentially a flashcard deck with a question wrapper.
Our drills on Practice Test Geeks — like the Resident's Rights drill or the Legal and Ethical Behavior drill — are structured as timed quizzes with explanations under every distractor and direct links to the next category in sequence. You get pacing practice plus reasoning practice. If you have ever scored well on flashcards but tanked the real exam because of clock pressure, you know which one matters more.
The honest recommendation: use CNA Plus for high-rep drilling on the categories where it is strong (Basic Nursing Skills, ADLs, Communication, Rights). Use PTG for the categories CNA Plus underdelivers on (Restorative, Mental Health, Spiritual/Cultural) and for timed full-length practice. They complement each other rather than competing.
If you create a free CNA Plus account, the platform stores your category-by-category scores and shows a running average. It is basic. You get percentage correct and a count of attempts per category. There is no sub-topic breakdown — you cannot see, for example, whether your Basic Nursing Skills weakness is concentrated in vital signs versus infection control.
For most candidates the simple percentage is enough. If you are scoring 75%+ on every category, you are in test-ready range. If one category sits below 65% after multiple attempts, that is your signal to grab the textbook and read the underlying material rather than drill more questions on top of unstable knowledge.
One thing worth knowing: scores reset if you clear your browser cookies and you are not logged in. Make the account if you want continuity. The signup is genuinely just an email and password — no spam.
The mobile site is functional but unpretty. Buttons are big enough to tap, the question stem and answer choices fit on one screen on most phones, and pages load fast. There is no native app. If you have ever tried to drill on a clunky mobile site during a lunch break, CNA Plus mobile is fine. Not great, but fine.
There are roughly a dozen credible free CNA practice sites in 2026. Quizlet decks, Brainscape sets, various YouTube-paired worksheets, and a handful of independent sites like ProProfs and Test-Guide. We have looked at most of them. CNA Plus sits in the top tier, but it is not alone there.
Compared to Quizlet, CNA Plus is more structured. Quizlet is community-generated, which means quality varies wildly between decks and category coverage is patchy. CNA Plus is centrally maintained, so even its weaker banks are organized and labeled correctly. That structure is worth something when you are trying to follow a study plan rather than improvise.
Compared to Test-Guide, CNA Plus has more questions per category but slightly thinner explanations. Compared to ProProfs, the explanations are roughly equal but ProProfs forces you through more ad interruption between questions. CNA Plus runs ads but they sit at the top and bottom of pages rather than between questions, which keeps drill flow uninterrupted. Small thing, but it matters when you are trying to maintain focus during a 45-minute study block.
The candidate community on Reddit's r/CNA and r/nursing subforums tends to recommend a stack rather than any single resource. CNA Plus regularly appears on those lists, usually alongside Saunders, free infection control drills, and the official state candidate handbook. That consensus matches what we found in testing.
CNA Plus works best for candidates in a specific situation: you have already completed a state-approved training program, you have read the core textbook (or you are working through one), and now you need volume to lock in retrieval practice. That is the sweet spot.
It works less well if you are starting from zero with no formal training behind you. The platform does not teach concepts — it tests them. Without the underlying clinical reasoning from a real course, the explanations will not land. You will memorize answers without understanding the why, and that breaks down on the variable-wording real exam.
It also works less well as a stand-alone tool if your state uses a less common test version. Most candidates take the NNAAP through Pearson VUE, but Prometric and Headmaster cover several states with slightly different blueprints. CNA Plus content tilts NNAAP. If you are in a Prometric state, verify category emphasis against your state guide before deciding how much you trust the bank's weighting.
A specific candidate profile we have seen do really well with CNA Plus: someone who completed a hospital or long-term-care training program 4-12 weeks ago, has been working as a nurse aide on a temporary certification, and now needs to pass the formal state exam to keep the job. That person has the clinical context already. They just need volume reps and a refresher on exam-style question wording. CNA Plus delivers exactly that. Try a few rounds of the Safety and Emergency Procedures drill on PTG between CNA Plus sessions to test cross-source retention.
A profile that struggles: someone who self-studied without a formal training program and is taking the exam in a state that allows challenge candidates. Without clinical context, the drill-only approach leaves real gaps. That candidate needs to start with a textbook or a structured online course, then layer drills on top.
If you are willing to spend $30-50 on a study book, the obvious pairing is Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-PN or the Mosby Nursing Assistant text. These books carry the conceptual heavy lifting that CNA Plus cannot — anatomy basics, the why behind infection control protocols, the legal framework around resident rights. The book teaches, the platform drills.
A realistic weekly rhythm looks like this. Read one Saunders chapter on Monday. Drill the matching CNA Plus category Tuesday and Wednesday. Take a timed quiz on the same topic from Practice Test Geeks Communication drills or the matching PTG category on Thursday. Review your mistakes Friday. Rest Saturday. Run a full-length practice test Sunday. That structure beats either resource alone because it covers learn-drill-test in sequence.
If money is tight and you cannot do a textbook, the best free substitute is your state's official CNA candidate handbook (Pearson VUE and Prometric both publish them as free PDFs). Read that, drill CNA Plus, supplement with PTG. That stack costs nothing and covers the essentials.
This goes beyond CNA Plus. There are dozens of free CNA practice sites out there and the quality range is huge. A few quick checks. Look at when the site was last updated — the footer copyright year is a tell. Anything older than 3 years is suspect because infection control and PPE protocols have changed.
Check whether explanations exist for wrong answers, not just the correct one. Search a few question stems on Google — if they appear word-for-word on five other sites, you are looking at recycled content from an expired source. CNA Plus passes most of these tests. Many free sites do not.
One last filter: are the categories named after the official exam domains, or after generic study topics? Sites that use "vital signs" or "infection control" as top-level categories often miss the broader blueprint. Sites that use "Basic Nursing Skills" or "Activities of Daily Living" are aligned with the actual exam structure. That naming choice is a fast signal.
CNA Plus deserves a spot in your study toolkit. Not at the center of it — the gaps in Restorative, Mental Health, and Spiritual/Cultural mean you cannot lean on it as your only resource — but as a free, high-volume drill engine layered on top of real instruction, it earns its keep.
The realistic stack for most candidates: a textbook (Saunders, Mosby, or your training program's issued manual) for concepts, CNA Plus for daily drilling on its four strong categories, and Practice Test Geeks CNA drills for explanations, timed practice, and the categories CNA Plus underdelivers on. That combination is genuinely free, covers the blueprint, and gives you the timed reps that flashcard-style platforms cannot.
One final word. If you are passing CNA Plus questions at 80%+ across all eight categories and you have watched the skills videos and you have run two timed full-length practice exams, you are in a good place to schedule the real test. The platform is honest about what it is. Use it for what it is good at, supplement where it is weak, and you will walk into the testing center ready. Good luck — and once you pass, take a look at CNA jobs near you to see what local facilities are hiring.