The ability to change the focusing system of the eye and sustain the focus for long periods is known as which term?

• A. Accommodative facility
• B. Accommodation
• C. Convergence
• D. Divergence

Answer: (A)

Accommodative facility is about how flexibly and reliably the eye can change its focusing power and keep that new focus during a task. When you shift gaze from far to near and back, the eye must adjust the lens via the ciliary muscle, increasing its refractive power for close work and then releasing it for distance. Accommodative facility captures both how quickly these changes can occur and how well the eye can sustain the new focusing state over the period of the task. Convergence and divergence relate to eye alignment rather than focusing power, and accommodation describes the actual process of changing the lens power—not the speed and sustainability of that change. So the term that best fits both changing the focusing system and maintaining that focus is accommodative facility.