Failed the APPLIED Exam: retake rules, registration windows and what to change

By The MockOral.ai team. Updated October 2026. Last reviewed October 22, 2026.

Failing one component of the APPLIED Exam is not the end of the road, and the ABA’s registration calendar has windows that retaking candidates use. This guide sets out the rules as the ABA states them, how the February and June registration windows have worked, and how to change your preparation rather than just repeat it.

First, the rules

• You retake only what you failed. The SOE and OSCE are scored separately. The ABA Policy Book says that if one component is failed, the candidate retakes only that component, and both must be passed.
• The fee is $1,250 per component. That is the ABA's listed retake fee.
• There is a minimum gap. The Policy Book says candidates who do not take or do not pass a scheduled APPLIED Exam may schedule the next one no earlier than four months after the scheduled exam.
• There is an overall deadline. For candidates who finished residency on or after Jan. 1, 2012, all certification requirements must be met within seven years of the last day of the year residency was completed. After that, the candidate must re-establish eligibility, which includes passing the BASIC Exam again.
• You need a license to be certified, not to test. You can sit the exam without one, but must report a full, unrestricted license in ABA GO before you are listed as certified.

When you can register again

The ABA now registers APPLIED candidates in designated windows rather than continuously. How the windows have worked for retakers:

For 2027 the ABA says a second window will open in early 2027 for newly eligible candidates, including 2026 week 5 and 6 candidates who did not pass one or both components. It has not yet published the exact dates. If you fail one component in a spring 2027 week, the June 2026 window (one-component candidates, fall weeks) is the closest precedent, but the ABA has not announced whether it will repeat.

Eligible candidates are emailed directly by the ABA. If you expect to be eligible and have not heard anything, the ABA asks you to contact coms@theaba.org.

Can my score be rechecked?

The ABA offers an assessment score verification service. For oral exams and OSCEs it verifies that the scores examiners assigned were correctly recorded and converted to a scaled score; examiners do not re-evaluate the performance, and it is not a review of content or the passing standard. Requests must be postmarked within six weeks of the official results release. The ABA notes it has no record of ever finding a discrepancy, so treat this as a formality rather than a strategy.

Read your score report

Results post in ABA GO about two weeks after the exam, and the full report about a week later. Before you plan anything, use the report to answer one question: was this one component, and where within it did you fall short? A plan to fix the OSCE looks very different from a plan to fix the SOE.

If you failed the SOE

The SOE assesses judgment, adaptability and the organization and presentation of information. Candidates who fail it often knew the medicine. What usually needs to change:

1. Answer structure. Decision, reason, action, then stop. If your practice answers run long, start with how to answer concisely.
2. Practice volume out loud. Reading more does not fix a speaking exam. Aim for at least two timed 35-minute sessions a week, with someone interrupting you.
3. Handling the twist. Practise stems where the examiner changes the situation mid-answer. Address the new problem first.
4. Defending a correct answer. Practise being challenged on a right answer and holding it, briefly, with a reason.
5. Different examiners. If you practised with one partner, you learned their style. Add new voices.

If you failed the OSCE

The OSCE has five communication and professionalism stations and two technical stations, each eight minutes. What usually needs to change:

1. Read the task statement and do exactly that. Time spent outside the task scores nothing.
2. Practise all five communication skills from the ABA OSCE Content Outline: informed consent, peri-procedural complications, ethics, communication with other professionals, and quality improvement.
3. Use plain language. You are talking to a standardized patient. Remove jargon.
4. Manage the clock. Start closing at the six-minute bell: summarize, invite questions, confirm the plan.
5. Hands-on ultrasound. If the technical stations went badly, get time with a probe on vascular access and the listed blocks, and review echo and POCUS images.

See the OSCE stations explained for what the outline asks in each.

A 10-week retake plan

A word on the mental side

Failing a component after years of training is hard, and it is more common than candidates assume. The ABA's published success rates (first-time takers and retakers combined) were 83% for the SOE and 86% for the OSCE in 2025, so a meaningful share of every cohort is in the same position. See SOE pass rates 2021 to 2025. Tell your program or your study group; they may be able to set up mock exams for you.