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Snellen Cheat Sheet

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We all know that having good eyesight is fundamental to driving safely. The often quoted standard for having good eyesight is the measure we know as 20/20. But what does 20/20 mean? To understand that you must look at a Snellen Chart. That’s the name of the collection of letters displayed in ever decreasing sizes on the wall chart used by Ophthalmologists and doctors’ to check your vision. The chart is named after its inventor in 1862, Dr Hermann Snellen, a Dutch Ophthalmologist.Snellen
The fractions shown at the side of the letters, 20/20, 20/30 etc., are measures of sharpness of sight or visual acuity. August Colenbrander, M.D. (Smith-Kettlewell Eye research Institute and California Pacific Medical Center) offers a good explanation of acuity measurement. He says: “If a subject needs letters (or symbols) that are twice as large or twice as close as those that can just be seen by a …show more content…

In the Snellen fraction 20/20, the first number represents the test distance, 20 feet. The second number represents the distance that the average eye can see the letters on a certain line of the eye chart. So, 20/20 means that the eye being tested can read a certain size letter when it is 20 feet away. If a person sees 20/40, at 20 feet from the chart that person can read letters that a person with 20/20 vision could read from 40 feet away. The 20/40 letters are twice the size of 20/20 letters; however, it does not mean 50% vision since 20/20 sounds like it is one half of 20/40. If 20/20 is considered 100% visual effiency, 20/40 visual acuity is 85% efficient.
If a patient sees 20/200, the smallest letter that they can see at 20 feet could be seen by a normal eye at 200 feet. This is the Snellen Acuity (English). In Metric Acuity, 20/20 equals 6/6. The conversion is that 20 feet equals approximately 6 meters (actually 6.096).
The “Tumbling E” Eye

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