November 2026 - Evaluating & Integrating Sources Study Guide for nursing students in
These questions give you two or more texts and ask you to weigh them together: where do they agree, where do they conflict, and which is more credible given who wrote it and why. The answer is never simply "the more recent one" — it depends on what is being claimed.
Reading guide
Integration of knowledge and ideas
· 15 scored questions
6 min read
Practice As You Read
Try 4 short questions throughout this guide. Check each answer to learn from the explanation.
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Reading two texts together
Work through the pair in this order rather than reading each one fully in turn.
Identify each text's claim in one sentence, before comparing anything.
Mark where they say the same thing. Shared ground is often what a question asks for.
Mark where they genuinely conflict — the same question answered differently — as against merely covering different ground.
Ask why they differ: different evidence, different period, different population, or different purpose.
Conflict is not always contradiction
Two texts that look opposed frequently are not. One may study a different group, measure a different outcome, or describe a different time. A 2008 paper reporting that a treatment rarely helps and a 2022 paper reporting that it usually does may both be correct if the treatment or the patient selection changed in between.
Real contradiction means the same claim about the same thing, answered incompatibly. Anything else is a difference in scope, and questions reward noticing which of the two you are looking at.
Question 1 of 4
Reading Passage
Passage 1 — A 2016 review of hospital discharge practice concluded that follow-up telephone calls two days after discharge had no measurable effect on readmission rates. The review pooled eleven studies, all of them conducted in general medical wards, and all of them using calls made by administrative staff working from a script.
Passage 2 — A 2023 trial found that follow-up calls reduced thirty-day readmissions by a fifth. In this trial the calls were made by a pharmacist who had access to the patient's discharge medication list and could change a dose or arrange a review on the call itself.
Do the two passages contradict each other?
Choose one answer, then check it.
View the Answer and Explanation
Correct answer: B. No — they studied different kinds of call, so the findings can both hold.
The 2016 review examined scripted calls by administrative staff and the 2023 trial examined clinical calls by a pharmacist who could act on what she found, so the two are answering different questions and both results can stand. Treating them as a straight contradiction ignores the difference in what was actually done, and Passage 2 plainly does report an effect.
Which source carries more weight
Credibility is a judgement made across four dimensions at once, not a ranking of document types.
Dimension
Ask
When it decides the matter
Author
What expertise and what stake?
When one source has a commercial or political interest in the answer
Evidence
Data, or assertion?
Almost always. A cited study beats a confident opinion
Date
How fast does this field move?
Clinical guidance, technology, epidemiology
Purpose
Written to inform, to sell, or to campaign?
When a source's conclusion is what it was funded to find
A source can be biased and correct. Bias is a reason to check a claim more carefully, not a reason to discard it — and a distractor that rejects a source purely because of who wrote it is testing whether you know the difference.
Question 2 of 4
Reading Passage
Passage 1 — A 2016 review of hospital discharge practice concluded that follow-up telephone calls two days after discharge had no measurable effect on readmission rates. The review pooled eleven studies, all of them conducted in general medical wards, and all of them using calls made by administrative staff working from a script.
Passage 2 — A 2023 trial found that follow-up calls reduced thirty-day readmissions by a fifth. In this trial the calls were made by a pharmacist who had access to the patient's discharge medication list and could change a dose or arrange a review on the call itself.
On what point do the two passages agree?
Choose one answer, then check it.
View the Answer and Explanation
Correct answer: B. That telephone follow-up after discharge is worth studying as a way of affecting readmissions
Both texts take readmission-focused telephone follow-up as a subject worth measuring, which is the shared ground even though their findings differ. Only Passage 2 reports a reduction, and neither passage makes any recommendation about who should or should not be making calls.
Terms to know
Synthesis
Combining what several sources say into one account of the subject.
Corroboration
Independent sources supporting the same claim, which strengthens it.
Contradiction
Two sources answering the same question about the same thing incompatibly.
Credibility
How much weight a source deserves, judged on author, evidence, date and purpose.
Conflict of interest
A stake in the conclusion that could shape what a source reports.
Scope
What a source actually covers — the population, period and outcome it studied.
What the TEAS asks most
The same core ideas appear in different wording. If you can answer these without stopping to think, you have what this section requires.
On which point do the two passages agree?
The claim both make, in different words. Watch for a point only one of them makes.
How would the author of Passage 2 respond to Passage 1?
Answer from Passage 2's stated position, not from what a reasonable critic could say.
Which source is more reliable for this claim, and why?
Weigh evidence first, then purpose, then date. Name the reason — the question usually wants it.
Do the two sources actually contradict each other?
Only if they answer the same question about the same population and outcome.
Question 3 of 4
Reading Passage
Passage 1 — A 2016 review of hospital discharge practice concluded that follow-up telephone calls two days after discharge had no measurable effect on readmission rates. The review pooled eleven studies, all of them conducted in general medical wards, and all of them using calls made by administrative staff working from a script.
Passage 2 — A 2023 trial found that follow-up calls reduced thirty-day readmissions by a fifth. In this trial the calls were made by a pharmacist who had access to the patient's discharge medication list and could change a dose or arrange a review on the call itself.
A student concludes: "The 2023 trial is more reliable because it is more recent." What is wrong with this reasoning?
Choose one answer, then check it.
View the Answer and Explanation
Correct answer: B. Date alone does not settle it; the review pooled eleven studies, and the difference between them is what the calls involved.
Recency matters, but here the substantive difference is the intervention itself, and a pooled review of eleven studies is not weaker merely for being older. Reviews are not automatically stronger than trials either — it depends what was pooled — and demanding funding information before drawing any conclusion sets an impossible bar.
Key points
State each source's claim in one sentence before comparing them.
Separate genuine contradiction from a difference of scope, period or population.
Credibility comes from evidence, purpose, expertise and date together.
Corroboration by an independent source strengthens a claim more than repetition does.
A biased source may still be right; bias means check, not discard.
Question 4 of 4
Reading Passage
Passage 1 — A 2016 review of hospital discharge practice concluded that follow-up telephone calls two days after discharge had no measurable effect on readmission rates. The review pooled eleven studies, all of them conducted in general medical wards, and all of them using calls made by administrative staff working from a script.
Passage 2 — A 2023 trial found that follow-up calls reduced thirty-day readmissions by a fifth. In this trial the calls were made by a pharmacist who had access to the patient's discharge medication list and could change a dose or arrange a review on the call itself.
Which extra piece of information would best help a reader integrate the two findings?
Choose one answer, then check it.
View the Answer and Explanation
Correct answer: A. Whether a pharmacist-led call still works when the pharmacist cannot change medication
Isolating the pharmacist's power to act would test the very mechanism that distinguishes the two studies, which is what integration requires. Sample size and journal are useful for weighing quality without explaining the difference, and patient enjoyment is a separate outcome from readmission.
TEAS · Evaluating and integrating sources
Knowledge Check Results
Answer the 4 questions in this guide to see your score, review each answer, and choose your next step.
Correct To Review
Your Answers, Question by Question
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