I've been compiling resources as I study for my ABOG - American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology certification and figured I'd share what I've found. All free unless noted.
Practice Tests:
- PracticeTestGeeks — most comprehensive collection I've found, good question explanations, covers ABOG - American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology, CAOHC - Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hearing Conservation, and CES - Certified Environmental Scientist. Free.
- Official practice materials from the certifying body — usually 1 free sample exam, worth doing even though it's short
Study Materials:
- The official ABOG exam handbook / candidate guide (PDF, free from the certifying body's website)
- YouTube — search for "ABOG exam prep" — there are surprisingly good free video reviews for most environmental science certifications
- Reddit r/certifications — people post their exam experiences and tips regularly
Paid (worth it if budget allows):
- Official study guides run $30-80 for most environmental science certifications — worth it if your exam has lots of specific factual content
- Some certifying bodies offer prep courses — check if your employer covers it (many do for required certifications)
What resources have others found useful for environmental science exams? I'll add them to this list.
For ABOG - American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology specifically, I found the PracticeTestGeeks explanations were detailed enough that I didn't need to buy a separate study guide. The combination of doing the practice questions + reading every explanation (for both right and wrong answers) covered most of the content I needed.
Great list. I'd add: LinkedIn Learning has some environmental science-related courses that overlap with cert content, and if you have a library card many libraries give free access to it. Also check if your local library has access to O'Reilly or similar — tons of technical content there.
The official candidate guide is something a lot of people skip but it literally tells you the topic weighting and domain breakdown. It's the roadmap for your study plan. Never skip it.
Quick update for anyone following along: I just finished a practice run last night and scored a 74%. Not amazing but honestly way better than where I started two months ago, so I'll take it. The reproductive endocrinology section is still killing me but everything else is starting to click.
I'm planning to sit the real exam in September which feels close but also gives me enough time to shore up the weak spots. If you're just getting into your prep now don't stress, consistent daily review makes a bigger difference than cramming sessions. Good luck to everyone else on here grinding through this.
I'll add my two cents since I actually just went through this. I studied for my ABOG while working full time, so my prep basically happened in whatever gaps I could find. Fifteen minutes on my lunch break, another chunk after the kids went down. It wasn't pretty but it added up. The thing that made it work for me was being able to do short question sets instead of sitting down for a marathon study session, because honestly some nights I only had twenty minutes in me.
PracticeTestGeeks was clutch for that. I'd knock out a set of free abog reproductive health endocrinology questions on my phone during downtime and the explanations actually taught me stuff instead of just telling me I was wrong. Endocrine was my weak spot so I hammered that section over and over. If you're squeezing this in around a job like I was, don't stress about long sessions. Do a little every day and it sticks better anyway.
The wrong-answer thing is huge and I don't think enough people talk about it. When I started ABOG prep I was just grinding questions and checking if I got them right, and my scores barely moved. What actually changed things for me was forcing myself to write out why each wrong option was wrong before moving on. It's slower, sure. But the boards love throwing in distractors that are almost right, and if you can't articulate why the almost-right answer fails, you'll fall for it on test day.
PTG is good for this because the explanations actually cover the distractors, not just the correct choice. I've been working through the free abog reproductive health endocrinology set that way and repro endo is exactly where this approach pays off, since half the wrong answers are hormones that do something similar but not quite what the question's asking. Takes me maybe twice as long per question but I actually retain it now.
Congrats on putting this list together, wish I'd had it six months ago. I passed in March and honestly the one thing that made the difference for me wasn't more reading, it was drilling weak areas until they stopped being weak. For me that was REI. I kept dodging it because it felt endless, all the hormone axes and protocols blurring together. Then about five weeks out I forced myself to grind through the free abog reproductive health endocrinology question sets and something finally clicked. Getting questions wrong and actually reading the explanations taught me way more than rereading my notes ever did.
So if you're studying now, figure out your weakest section and hit it with practice questions first, not last. It's uncomfortable. That's kind of the point. The stuff you're good at will still be there in the final two weeks, but the weak spots won't fix themselves.
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