Hey guys Recently passed my NBDE I and thought I'd share my experience. I realize a lot has been said about the material/resources but when I first started preparing, looking through SDN helped me a lot so I figured this might help someone as well. Oh and I'm a foreign trained dentist 3 years out of dental school
I spent three months preparing for this exam, dedicating 5 hours a day (might be overkill considering its pass/fail but I really wanted to pass comfortably) although there were days I studied for 5 hours and days where I studied for 2. These are the materials I used and my thoughts on them:
Dental decks: I think I read through one flash card from the Anatomy section and immediately disliked it. I felt overwhelmed with information and the flash card method really didn't suit my style of studying.
Board busters (now known as Dentin): I LOVED this book. This became my main source of study. A lot of people say it's the same as dental decks except organized into a book, can't say that for sure as I never went through decks (apart from that one anatomy flash card and a few ones from dental anatomy). This book has literally everything you need to know to pass. You can study exclusively from this and guarantee a pass. I went through this book 3 times (takes a month to go through it all, depending on your study schedule). Definitely highly recommend this (especially if you're more comfortable studying from books)
Dental Board Mastery app: I used this after going through board busters. Found it very useful in helping me retain information. I would answer questions and then refer back to board busters to review concepts and that really made concepts stick. This app also had additional information not found in board busters. Also loved their mnemonic and terminology sections. Although they claim you can only use their app to pass, I would definitely not study exclusively from this. Great study aid though and I went over all the app content twice. Was actually refreshing changing up my study method and studying from this after spending a fair amount of time studying from a book Highly reccomend getting this.
Released exam questions: I believe I answered testlets J to M. I did this towards the end of my studying and found myself able to answer the majority of questions.
NBDE mnemonics: this is the username of the guy behind "300 dental anatomy facts to ace the boards" on YouTube. You HAVE to watch this! Dental anatomy and occlusion in board busters is sufficient but I felt really weak in it. Board busters would list a tooth and about 30 facts/features of it all in one long list. So I ended up not really retaining any of the information. After watching the YouTube videos, screen- capturing all 300 facts and going over them daily (did this two weeks before the exam), I felt so much more confident about dental anatomy and occlusion. I would say go over board busters and watch these videos (and know the 300 facts well) and you'll easily pass this on the exam. He also has other videos but I only watched the 300 facts, picket fence, and occlusion in 5 minutes. I wouldn't really waste time with the other videos.
As I said, I made sure to go over the content of everything I listed above 2-3 times but only because I really wanted to pass and since I had 3 months I made sure to utilize them well I'm also the kind of learner who has to go over material a lot in order to be comfortable with it.
Good luck everyone and hope this helped someone
I spent three months preparing for this exam, dedicating 5 hours a day (might be overkill considering its pass/fail but I really wanted to pass comfortably) although there were days I studied for 5 hours and days where I studied for 2. These are the materials I used and my thoughts on them:
Dental decks: I think I read through one flash card from the Anatomy section and immediately disliked it. I felt overwhelmed with information and the flash card method really didn't suit my style of studying.
Board busters (now known as Dentin): I LOVED this book. This became my main source of study. A lot of people say it's the same as dental decks except organized into a book, can't say that for sure as I never went through decks (apart from that one anatomy flash card and a few ones from dental anatomy). This book has literally everything you need to know to pass. You can study exclusively from this and guarantee a pass. I went through this book 3 times (takes a month to go through it all, depending on your study schedule). Definitely highly recommend this (especially if you're more comfortable studying from books)
Dental Board Mastery app: I used this after going through board busters. Found it very useful in helping me retain information. I would answer questions and then refer back to board busters to review concepts and that really made concepts stick. This app also had additional information not found in board busters. Also loved their mnemonic and terminology sections. Although they claim you can only use their app to pass, I would definitely not study exclusively from this. Great study aid though and I went over all the app content twice. Was actually refreshing changing up my study method and studying from this after spending a fair amount of time studying from a book Highly reccomend getting this.
Released exam questions: I believe I answered testlets J to M. I did this towards the end of my studying and found myself able to answer the majority of questions.
NBDE mnemonics: this is the username of the guy behind "300 dental anatomy facts to ace the boards" on YouTube. You HAVE to watch this! Dental anatomy and occlusion in board busters is sufficient but I felt really weak in it. Board busters would list a tooth and about 30 facts/features of it all in one long list. So I ended up not really retaining any of the information. After watching the YouTube videos, screen- capturing all 300 facts and going over them daily (did this two weeks before the exam), I felt so much more confident about dental anatomy and occlusion. I would say go over board busters and watch these videos (and know the 300 facts well) and you'll easily pass this on the exam. He also has other videos but I only watched the 300 facts, picket fence, and occlusion in 5 minutes. I wouldn't really waste time with the other videos.
As I said, I made sure to go over the content of everything I listed above 2-3 times but only because I really wanted to pass and since I had 3 months I made sure to utilize them well I'm also the kind of learner who has to go over material a lot in order to be comfortable with it.
Good luck everyone and hope this helped someone
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