I paid money for the cog prep, and felt it was worth it. A drop in the bucket compared to what was on the line. I had read how some had missed getting the job by a couple of points and I didn't want to take the chance. I play my fair share of video games, and figured I wouldn't have any problems, but eye-hand coordination only goes so far when it comes to the test. In the back of my mind I was thinking about how other well qualified guys had experienced problems with the cog test, and I didn't want to leave anything to chance so getting exposure to it beforehand was nice. After taking the prep test I got the results from the doc and he told me we had nothing to talk about; that I could probably do twice as bad on the real deal and I'd still be OK. But it took some pressure off, and I did even better on the real thing. I knew after taking the cog test on interview day that it wasn't going to be the reason for my not getting the job, which helped relieve some nervousness before I headed into the interview itself. If you're not worried too much about it and you can regurgitate numbers backwards, play video games with ease, and can remember colored square patterns for a couple of seconds later then you shouldn't have a problem. But if it's gnawing at you, and you're worried you might screw it up then it might be worth the money to calm your nerves, or possibly figure out which part of the cog test is a challenge for you. I really don't know what you could do if you had problems with the test at the MD's office. If I had done poorly in an area that needed work my sense was he was going to look at my results and talk to me again over the weekend before I went to the interview. Maybe, if time allows, he lets you go back and work on the area that needed work; I don't know--I have my doubts that's an option.

GG