I'm sitting the CHT in about 8 weeks and the plant ID portion is making me sweat. I've been doing nursery work for 3 years so the hands-on stuff is second nature, but putting Latin binomials to paper under exam pressure is a completely different skill. My practice scores on that section are sitting around 61%.
I'm studying about 90 minutes a day and splitting time between plant pathology, pest ID, and the soil science modules. Soil science feels the most manageable at around 78% on practice questions, but plant ID and pesticide safety are both dragging my overall score down to about 67%.
Is passing the CHT about hitting 75% on each section individually or is it an aggregate score? I've gotten conflicting info on that and it changes how I'd prioritize my prep in these final weeks.
Plant ID was the hardest part for me too. I ended up making a binder of 200 flashcards with photos on one side and genus/species on the other, and that got my practice score from 58% up to 79% in about 4 weeks of consistent review.
I'd focus on weed ID in addition to ornamentals — there were about 12 questions specifically on invasive species and common turfgrass weeds on my exam and I wasn't prepared for that volume of them.
3 years of nursery experience is a real advantage, don't discount it. A lot of the exam questions are practical scenarios and your field experience fills gaps that pure studying won't cover.
It's an aggregate score as far as I know — at least when I took it 2 years ago. I got hammered on pesticide safety (around 63%) but scored strong in soil and pest ID and still passed overall with a 76%.
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