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Hi everyone,
I recently passed my NBDE I and would like to share my experience with you. Before I start I just want to say that I am grateful for SDN pre/dental community. The breakdowns written from dental students before me really served as a valuable resource when I was studying for DATs, applying to dental schools, and most recently for the NBDE Is. Thought I would finally contribute back with a breakdown of my own. I want to put a disclaimer that: these are my own experiences and how I approach studying; it will not work for everyone so please take my breakdown with a grain of salt and tailor to your own needs.
Before planning your plan of attack, I highly recommend looking at ADA’s breakdown of the topics covered on this exam. Remember we only need a 75% not a 100% to pass. With 400 random questions and only a limited amount of time to study, I knew for me there was no way to know everything on this exam. Instead, I focused on my strengths and did not bother with topics I knew little/nothing about (which for me were neuro, reproduction, and anything below the head and neck).
I spent a solid three weeks preparing for this exam. Around 8-10 hours a day. By end of second week, I had finished studying and used the last week reviewing and going over old ADA released exams.
The materials I used were:
1) Dentin (aka board busters): I only studied from this book and supplemented using google and youtube. Someone had told me that this book has everything you need to pass and I agree. This book does NOT attempt to cover every topic on the exam or explain topics great deal so for those who like books that goes into in depth explanations, this is NOT the book for you. What this book does however is cram everything you need to pass into a compact form. I thought the book itself was disorganized (though people has told me that it is more organized than the decks) and I did find some errors on my 2016 copy but overall I am very satisfied with it and would recommend it for those who like me are: crammers, like compact explanations over in depth ones and are good at memorizing facts that don’t seem to be related to one another.
a. Please don’t ask me about how Dentin compares with other review books because I would not know. I only used this book and this book alone.
2) Dental Board Mastery app: I used this in conjunction with Dentin. Whenever I finished a topic in Dentin, I would do questions related to that topic on the app to reinforce what I learned. I LOVE this app and I recommend this app to eveyrone. I have friends who only used this app and passed and while I would not recommend it, it certainly shows its ingenuity. While I found its mnemonics silly and frankly useless, I like the in depth explanations it gives for each question and why others are wrong. Before I took my exam, I had done all the questions on the app and reviewed all the ones I marked. Overall this is a great study tool especially when you want to break the monotony of studying from a book.
3) Released ADA exams: I did only 3 exams. I was able to answer about 50-60% of the questions correctly.
4) For the dental anatomy section, I relied on youtube from a guy who is behind “300 dental anatomy facts to ace the boards.” I strongly recommend watching that video and his videos on dental anatomy and occlusion (picket fence and learn occlusion in 5 min). His videos and Dentin are more than enough for you to ace the dental anatomy proportion of the exam.
Lastly, when you are taking the exam, remember to pace yourself! The exam is 7+ hours long, it is NOT a sprint but more of an endurance run so don’t burn yourself out in trying to finish everything at once. I highly recommend using that optional 1 hour break to take a breather, eat, and relax.
This is all I did to prepare myself for part I.
Good luck guys and happy studying!
I recently passed my NBDE I and would like to share my experience with you. Before I start I just want to say that I am grateful for SDN pre/dental community. The breakdowns written from dental students before me really served as a valuable resource when I was studying for DATs, applying to dental schools, and most recently for the NBDE Is. Thought I would finally contribute back with a breakdown of my own. I want to put a disclaimer that: these are my own experiences and how I approach studying; it will not work for everyone so please take my breakdown with a grain of salt and tailor to your own needs.
Before planning your plan of attack, I highly recommend looking at ADA’s breakdown of the topics covered on this exam. Remember we only need a 75% not a 100% to pass. With 400 random questions and only a limited amount of time to study, I knew for me there was no way to know everything on this exam. Instead, I focused on my strengths and did not bother with topics I knew little/nothing about (which for me were neuro, reproduction, and anything below the head and neck).
I spent a solid three weeks preparing for this exam. Around 8-10 hours a day. By end of second week, I had finished studying and used the last week reviewing and going over old ADA released exams.
The materials I used were:
1) Dentin (aka board busters): I only studied from this book and supplemented using google and youtube. Someone had told me that this book has everything you need to pass and I agree. This book does NOT attempt to cover every topic on the exam or explain topics great deal so for those who like books that goes into in depth explanations, this is NOT the book for you. What this book does however is cram everything you need to pass into a compact form. I thought the book itself was disorganized (though people has told me that it is more organized than the decks) and I did find some errors on my 2016 copy but overall I am very satisfied with it and would recommend it for those who like me are: crammers, like compact explanations over in depth ones and are good at memorizing facts that don’t seem to be related to one another.
a. Please don’t ask me about how Dentin compares with other review books because I would not know. I only used this book and this book alone.
2) Dental Board Mastery app: I used this in conjunction with Dentin. Whenever I finished a topic in Dentin, I would do questions related to that topic on the app to reinforce what I learned. I LOVE this app and I recommend this app to eveyrone. I have friends who only used this app and passed and while I would not recommend it, it certainly shows its ingenuity. While I found its mnemonics silly and frankly useless, I like the in depth explanations it gives for each question and why others are wrong. Before I took my exam, I had done all the questions on the app and reviewed all the ones I marked. Overall this is a great study tool especially when you want to break the monotony of studying from a book.
3) Released ADA exams: I did only 3 exams. I was able to answer about 50-60% of the questions correctly.
4) For the dental anatomy section, I relied on youtube from a guy who is behind “300 dental anatomy facts to ace the boards.” I strongly recommend watching that video and his videos on dental anatomy and occlusion (picket fence and learn occlusion in 5 min). His videos and Dentin are more than enough for you to ace the dental anatomy proportion of the exam.
Lastly, when you are taking the exam, remember to pace yourself! The exam is 7+ hours long, it is NOT a sprint but more of an endurance run so don’t burn yourself out in trying to finish everything at once. I highly recommend using that optional 1 hour break to take a breather, eat, and relax.
This is all I did to prepare myself for part I.
Good luck guys and happy studying!
