What is the ABOS Part II retake policy?

The ABOS allows candidates up to 3 attempts to pass the Part II oral examination. If you fail on your first attempt, you are eligible to register for the next available exam cycle. There is no mandatory waiting period beyond the standard exam cycle spacing — if you fail the July exam, you can retake in October of the same year, provided registration deadlines have not passed.

After a failed attempt, the ABOS provides limited feedback on your performance areas. This feedback is general — it will not tell you exactly which cases you scored poorly on or give you a case-by-case breakdown. However, it does indicate which scoring dimensions were weakest, which is valuable for directing your re-preparation efforts.

If a candidate fails all 3 allowed attempts, the consequences are severe: the candidate must restart the entire board certification process, including retaking the Part I written examination. This effectively adds years to the certification timeline. The stakes of each retake are therefore progressively higher. Candidates on their second or third attempt should consider their preparation approach carefully — if the strategy that failed the first time was "study more," the problem is almost certainly not knowledge but presentation and composure. Ortho Board Prep works with retake candidates to diagnose the specific failure patterns and target them with intensive mock oral practice.