CDT exam passing score and which chapters to actually prioritize

Your 68-70% after five weeks is a solid place to be. Most people find their scores jump in the final three to four weeks when everything starts connecting. Keep the daily practice going and you'll likely land at 75-78% by exam day.

The procedural section on my exam was lighter than expected — maybe 15% of questions. Don't over-invest there. Clinical knowledge sections covering lesion identification and treatment protocols carry much more weight. Make sure you can identify primary vs secondary lesions and know the ABCDE melanoma criteria inside out.

Pharmacology is probably 20-25% of the exam. Retinoids and teratogenicity warnings, biologics used in psoriasis (TNF inhibitors, IL-17 and IL-23 inhibitors), and topical corticosteroid potency classes are the highest yield. Know the iPLEDGE requirements for isotretinoin cold — I had three questions on that specifically.

Infection control and HIPAA basics showed up more than I anticipated — probably five or six questions. Coming from a medical assistant background you probably have that covered, but worth a quick review in your last week so it doesn't catch you off guard.

I just passed last month so I can actually help here. The 75% passing score is accurate, that's what I've heard consistently and it matched what I needed. For chapters, don't waste too much time on the basic anatomy stuff early on — focus hard on inflammatory conditions and treatment protocols because those showed up constantly for me. Honestly the procedural knowledge section wasn't as heavy as I expected.

The one thing that made the biggest difference was doing practice questions in timed blocks rather than just reading. After week six I switched to 30-question timed sets and it completely changed how I processed the material. You start to recognize how they phrase answers and it's way less about memorizing and more about clinical reasoning. Good luck, it's totally passable with your timeline.

I've been doing the same thing, and honestly the biggest shift for me was stopping to figure out why a wrong answer was wrong instead of just moving on. Like, if you pick A and the answer is C, don't just note it and flip to the next one. Ask yourself what made A seem right, and then you'll stop falling for that trap on similar questions. It slows you down at first but it's so worth it.

For chapters, I'd weight anything related to conditions and treatments the heaviest. I did a ton of reps with a cdt common skin conditions treatment practice test and it caught gaps I didn't even know I had. The pharmacology stuff wasn't as brutal as I expected once I understood mechanisms instead of just memorizing drug names. Ten weeks is plenty if you're consistent.