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Do you remember taking an eye test? If you do, you probably remember the tests: one test is where you have to read letters from far away, and another test is where you look into special glasses and you read something that is very close to your eyes. Do you ever wonder, "Why two tests?"

Well, the reason for that is they have to check two very different parts of your vision:
nearsightedness and farsightedness. Doctors want to make sure that you can see well in both situations. That is why there are two numbers you talk about when you talk about eyesight. You may have heard of "20/20" vision. And you may know, this is perfect vision. But do you know exactly what the numbers stand for?

The first number is in feet. Most eye test are taken at 20 feet away. As you read the lines down from the top, the lines get smaller. You continue line by line until you can no longer read the smallest lines.
If the smallest line you can read is the smallest line people with perfect vision can read, you have perfect, or 20/20, vision. This means that at 20 feet, you can read the lines that a normal person can read at 20 feet.

20/150 means that what a normal person sees at 150 feet (which isn't much because it all looks smaller), that is what you can see at 20 feet. That means that what a person sees from far away, you have to be much closer to see. So this means you have poor vision. Because you can't see things that are far away, you are nearsighted.

So what do you do if you have poor vision?
If you have poor vision, it is okay. You can get glasses or contact lenses to correct your vision. Glasses and contact lenses help to focus what you are looking at so it doesn't look blurry. However, nearsighted people have different glasses than farsighted people. Also, people wear different size glasses depending on how much their eyesight needs correction.
Never share your glasses or wear someone else's.
If you need glasses but don't like how they look, you can get contact lenses. They do the same thing as glasses, but they are much smaller and work closer to your eyes. In fact, you put them in right over your eye and people can't even tell you are wearing them!

              ASTIGMATISM              
Another eye problem is astigmatism. If you have astigmatism, what you see is distorted and may look off center. You can get glasses or contacts to fix this problem as well, but they are different than glasses for farsightedness or nearsightedness. However, you can't tell just by looking.


Next, I want to tell you how to care for your eyes. Click on me and I will explain.