I've been working toward my CO certification for almost two years and I'm finally scheduled for the written exam. I passed my clinical hours requirement last fall but the written portion has been hanging over me. Feels good to have a date locked in, honestly.
I've gone through about 60% of the recommended study materials but I'm not sure how much weight to put on pharmacology versus ocular motility. My practice scores are hovering around 68% overall, which isn't where I need to be with 6 weeks left.
Anyone who's sat for this recently — how did the question distribution break down for you? I've heard the anatomy section can be tricky if you haven't reviewed cranial nerve pathways in a while, and that's definitely me right now.
I took it 8 months ago. Ocular motility was the heaviest section by far — probably around 35% of what I saw. Make sure you can describe and differentiate strabismus patterns cold before going in.
Don't sleep on the pediatric vision section. I underestimated it and it cost me several points. There's more depth to it than the study guides suggest.
Pharmacology is manageable — mostly topical agents and their mechanisms. Two or three focused sessions should cover it. I'd prioritize motility and anatomy over pharm any day.
68% at 6 weeks out is actually not bad. I was at 65% at that point and passed with a 77%. Just stay consistent and don't skip the practice questions.
I just passed mine three weeks ago so this is fresh. Honestly, the thing that helped me most wasn't grinding through more material — it was going back to the clinical reasoning stuff and actually understanding why, not just what. The questions are sneaky. They'll give you a scenario that looks obvious but the right answer depends on knowing the underlying mechanism cold.
Six weeks is plenty if you're focused. Don't sleep on the ethics and scope of practice questions either, I almost skipped those because they seemed like common sense and they're really not. Practice tests helped me figure out where I was fooling myself into thinking I knew something when I didn't. You've already got the hours, you know this stuff — it's more about trusting your prep than cramming at the end.
Honestly the thing that helped me most was drilling the specific clinical areas I kept avoiding. I passed in April and the diagnosis/management questions hit harder than I expected. Don't sleep on strabismus and amblyopia content — I found these free co diagnosis management of strabismus and amblyopia questions pretty late in my prep and wished I'd done them sooner. It's not glamorous stuff but it shows up.
Six weeks is actually solid time if you're focused. I wasted a couple weeks reviewing things I already knew well and it wasn't until I started practicing under timed conditions that things clicked. You've already done the hard part with clinical hours, the written is very passable.
Honestly, the thing that made the biggest difference for me was drilling the differential diagnosis questions until they felt automatic. I spent way too much time re-reading notes and not enough time actually practicing under timed conditions. Once I switched to doing question blocks every day and reviewing why I got things wrong, my scores jumped fast.
Six weeks is plenty of time if you focus on weak spots instead of reviewing stuff you already know. Don't waste time on material that feels comfortable. Find your gaps and hammer those. The exam wasn't as tricky as I expected it to be, but it does test application way more than memorization, so practicing with real question formats is honestly the best thing you can do right now.