I'm not going to sugarcoat it: I bombed the ABO exam twice before I finally passed last month. First attempt I scored a 68, needed a 75. Second time I hit a 72 and honestly cried in my car afterward. I'd been working as an optician's assistant for two years and my boss kept telling me I "just needed to study harder" but I genuinely didn't know what that meant.
What changed everything for my third attempt was finding a solid ABO practice test that actually matched the format of the real thing — timed sections, optics calculations, the works. I also stopped trying to memorize everything and started building a study guide around my weak spots. For me that was transposition and prism problems. I spent about 6 weeks, maybe an hour a day, just hammering those two areas.
Curious what worked for others here. Are there specific exam tips around the optics section that helped? And does anyone know if the actual exam has changed recently? The 2025 version felt different from older practice materials I'd been using.