RANZCO exams guide and question bank for Australia and New Zealand

RANZCO trains ophthalmologists for both Australia and New Zealand through the VTP, which runs in three phases after a preparation period: Basic Training (years 1 and 2), Advanced Training (years 3 and 4) and Final Year Training (year 5). Exams sit in the first two phases; the Final Year has none. Each exam is aligned with one or more of RANZCO's 23 published curriculum standards.

Two naming quirks: RANZCO's timetables spell out OBCK as "Ophthalmic Basic Clinical Competencies and Knowledge" and its examinations page drops "Clinical"; both mean the same OSCE. That page also groups COPEM with the Ophthalmic Sciences, but the 2026 VTP Requirements Guide describes COPEM as four online learning packages completed before training, not a sat exam. There is no standalone refraction exam: refraction is assessed in the workplace through the Refraction and Retinoscopy Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA), and six Level 5 EPAs (three adult, three paediatric) are needed before you can register for the RACE.

The Ophthalmic Sciences exams are three separate written papers, each 100 multiple-choice questions of equal weight in two hours. They are sat over a day and a half at Cliftons test centers each September; in 2027, on 14 and 15 September.

Each paper is graded pass or fail on its own, with no negative marking, and if you fail one paper you resit only that paper. Pass marks are set by the Angoff method: a panel estimates how a borderline "candidate at the standard" would answer each question, so the cut score follows the difficulty of that paper rather than a fixed 50% or a curve. RANZCO's documents describe the questions only as multiple choice and do not say whether they are single best answer.

There are no prerequisites, and you must sit at the first available sitting, aiming to pass in the first 12 months; a failed paper is resat the following year. Trainees are guaranteed two attempts at each paper, a first failure places you on a Support Pathway, and anyone who has not passed all three papers and the OBCK by the 21-month point is referred for a Comprehensive Review of Training and may be discontinued.

The OBCK is an Objective Structured Clinical Examination of eight stations, nine minutes each, testing whether you can observe and record clinical signs accurately under standard conditions. RANZCO stresses that it assesses examination technique and documentation only, not diagnostic reasoning or management, so practice for it at the slit lamp and on recording findings rather than from a question bank.

It is held once a year, over a weekend in May, with each candidate attending one day; the 2027 OBCK is on 22-23 May. You must sit it at the first opportunity and pass within your first 18 months of training. A compulsory site orientation runs the day before.

Ophthalmic Pathology is a two-hour, computer-based paper of 100 multiple-choice questions, graded pass or fail by Angoff standard setting. RANZCO moved it to MCQ format from 2025, with no negative marking, and it now has one sitting a year, in March; the 2027 exam is on 16 March.

It counts as an Advanced Training exam, and trainees are expected to sit it within the first 12 months of Advanced Training. A trainee who passed the OBCK and all three science papers in year one may sit it early, in Basic Training year two. Passing it is a prerequisite for the RACE. Trainees are guaranteed two attempts; a first failure means a Support Pathway, and a second failure means referral to the Progression Committee.

The RANZCO Advanced Clinical Examination (RACE) is the final exam of the VTP. Every curriculum standard is assessable, but it is blueprinted mainly on nine: Cataract, Oculoplastic and Orbit, Glaucoma, Cornea and External Eye, Vitreoretinal, Ocular Inflammation, Ocular Motility, Neuro-ophthalmology and Paediatrics. It has two components, written and OSCE, and you must pass both to enter the Final Year.

The written component is four computer-based papers of Short Essay Questions (SEQs) and Very Short Answer Questions (VSAQs). SEQs are structured answers that test clinical judgment and synthesis, often a detailed management plan for a complex case; VSAQs need brief, specific answers and often test recall and rapid recognition of clinical signs. Neither is multiple choice. The written exam runs over two days at Cliftons test centers; RANZCO's public documents do not give the number of questions or the time per paper.

The clinical component is an OSCE of 18 stations, nine minutes each, over two days at a major training hospital, with two stations for each of the nine clinical standards and a two-minute changeover. A compulsory site orientation the day before lets you see the room and test the equipment. Each component gets a pass or fail grade by Angoff standard setting.

Overseas-trained ophthalmologists who want specialist registration in Australia apply to RANZCO for Specialist Recognition Assessment, after first having their qualifications verified through the Australian Medical Council (AMC) and the ECFMG's EPIC service. Applications open from 1 February to 1 September each year. RANZCO assesses comparability in four stages (document review, structured interview, further requirements and final assessment) and makes a recommendation to the Medical Board of Australia, which grants registration.

SIMGs found partially comparable complete 6 to 24 months of supervised practice in Australia and may be required to sit the RACE clinical component at the first sitting after it. RANZCO describes this as an information-gathering tool for its SIMG Committee, which reviews the result alongside the whole application, and allows multiple attempts within the maximum assessment timeframe. Eligible SIMGs get the RACE resources on RANZCO Learning, and the SIMG guide suggests a registrar course such as the two-week Dunedin Ophthalmology Clinical Course and mock exams at a training hospital.

In New Zealand, SIMGs apply to the Medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ), not RANZCO; RANZCO advises MCNZ, which decides on any assessment tasks and on vocational registration. SIMG fees differ between RANZCO pages: the July 2025 SIMG guide lists the RACE clinical component at AUD 4,144 (as of 2026), while the Application Fees page, last updated June 2025, lists AUD 2,760 for the clinical and AUD 820 for the written component. Confirm with the SIMG team before you register.

All 2026 RANZCO exams have now taken place; the last were the Ophthalmic Sciences papers on 15-16 September 2026 and the RACE OSCE on the Gold Coast on 3-4 September 2026. RANZCO has published its full 2027 timetable. Registrations are processed after the closing date, invoices then appear on the Portal, and candidate instructions are emailed at least four weeks before each exam.

Fees below are the 2026 trainee fees in Australian dollars. RANZCO's 2026/27 schedule of rates does not list exam fees and asks trainees to contact the College for them, so 2027 exam fees are not yet published. Every withdrawal from an exam costs an AUD 100 administration fee.

RANZCO does not publish routine pass rates for its exams on its website. The best public figures come from a 2023 study in BMC Medical Education that analyzed RACE results: the written pass rate ranged from 30% (semester 2, 2017) to 81% (semester 1, 2018), and the clinical pass rate from 56% (semester 2, 2018) to 90% (semester 2, 2020).

RANZCO's own 2022 Annual Evaluation Report describes a declining trend in RACE pass rates for both components, steeper for the written exam, with pass rates falling at each further attempt. Trainees surveyed felt the written component, though aligned with the curriculum, was pitched at subspecialty rather than general ophthalmology level, and RANZCO began further studies on this in 2022.

Each RANZCO exam is written against its own curriculum standard, published on the College website; RANZCO's SIMG guide stresses studying from these documents for the RACE because each question is referenced to them. Most question banks, including OphthoMentor, use the 13 BCSC-aligned sections instead. The RACE standards map closely onto them; a few RANZCO standards, such as Ophthalmic Trauma, Ophthalmic Ultrasound, Cultural Safety and Evidence-Based Ophthalmic Practice, have no single matching section.

A multiple-choice bank fits the Ophthalmic Sciences and Ophthalmic Pathology papers directly: do timed blocks at the real pace of 100 questions in two hours (72 seconds each) and track scores by topic. For the RACE, a bank is a recall tool, not a rehearsal: use it to cover the nine clinical standards and find weak areas, then practice typed SEQ and VSAQ answers against the clock, using past papers, the RACE resources on RANZCO Learning, study-group marking and mock OSCEs. Trainees interviewed for the 2023 RACE study called the written exam heavily time-pressured and touch typing essential.

OphthoMentor, an independent bank, organizes questions by the 13 BCSC-aligned subspecialties rather than by RANZCO curriculum standards. A free plan opens 65 questions, five from every subspecialty; the full bank is a one-time payment with no subscription. Every question has an explanation, many with decision flowcharts, and there are weak-topic drills, a spaced-repetition review queue and a readiness dashboard. Core ($319, 12 months) opens the full bank; Residency ($619) gives the same access for 36 months.

OphthoMentor's questions are original single-best-answer items that the site says are checked against BCSC, Kanski and clinical guidelines; they are not RANZCO past papers and are not mapped to RANZCO's curriculum standards or exam blueprints. The bank also carries EBO-style true/false items, and RANZCO's documents do not say which multiple-choice style its papers use. Every one of the 13 subspecialties has questions. Fill gaps from the RANZCO curriculum standards and treat any readiness estimate as a guide, not a prediction. The free public library of sample questions is at ophthomentor.com/ophthalmology-questions.