Question

An optician while testing the eyes finds the vision of a patient to be 6/12. By this he means that:

• A. The person can read the letters of 6 inches from a distance of 12 m.
• B. The person can read the letters of 12 inches from 6 m.
• C. The person can read the letters from 6 m which the normal eye can read from 12 m.
• D. The focal length of eye lens has become half that of the normal eye.

Answer 1

Answer: (C)

The person can read the letters from 6 m which the normal eye can read from 12 m.

Visual acuity is the measurement of how clearly we see at a specific distance, usually 20 feet or 6 meters.
The acuity is usually presented as two numbers that indicate how close a person will need to be to an eye chart to see the letters or symbols clearly, compared to what a person with 'normal' vision would see.
The larger the denominator, the worse the eye sees, so a VA of 6/12 is half as good as 6/6.
Hence, 6/12 means the person can read the letters from 6 m which the normal eye can read from 12 m.