Audiograms in exams

If your faced with an audiogram in an exam and there is no key, then these tips might help:

Remember Noughts and Crosses - Audiograms are presented as if you are facing the patient (right ear on the left and left ear on the right). In this configuration noughts come first (right ear) and then crosses (left ear). If it's coloured then right=red, left= blue.

Air Masking - A tone applied at one ear is typically heard 40-80 dB quieter at the other ear. If the test ear has much worse hearing than the non-test ear, then it may be necessary to apply a masking noise at the non-test ear so that it doesn't pick up the test tone.

Bond Masking - A tone applied to bone at one ear is typically heard at almost the same volume in the other ear. This could make an ear that has sensorineural loss look like it has conductive loss because the other ear picks up the bond conductive tone. Masking applied to the non-test ear can prevent the the non-test ear from picking up the test tone.