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- Dec 13, 2011
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Hi guys! I'm back with another breakdown.
I noticed on SDN that there are a lot of breakdowns for NBDE part 1 but rarely any recent NBDE part 2's. I recently passed my part 2 and figured I would share my experience with all of you.
Like my NBDE part 1 breakdown, 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.
Back to the breakdown:
I did not spend a lot of time preparing for part 2 compared to part 1. I had just finished taking finals for third year so a lot of the topics were still fresh in my mind. I decided to take a leap of faith and not review any topics that I was proficient in but instead concentrated on topics I had not reviewed in a long time.
I used about 2 weeks to prep my exam spending about 3-4 hours a day and upping the hours to 6-7 hours on the weekends. By end of 10 days, I had finished studying and used the last 4 days reviewing and doing questions.
The materials I used:
1) Dental decks (2016-2017 ed): I personally thought dental decks were overkill. I am a crammer and like to memorize information in an organized, concise manner. DD simply had too much extraneous information. I only used DD for areas I was deficient in.
2) Tuft's pharmacology and Mosby's patient management: I used these two to review for pharm and patient management which frankly were my weakest sections. I cannot recommend these two resources enough*** A lot of questions similar to Tuft's came up on my exam and Mosby's was very helpful in preparing me for patient management section.
Some of my classmates also used dental busters to review, PLEASE DO NOT ask me about dentin/dental busters or any other form of study material, I only used the materials listed above.
2) Dental Board Mastery app: I used this in conjunction with DD. While this app was a must for me in part 1, I thought the app for part 2 was only okay at best. I went through all the questions but in hindsight I do not think this is a holy grail app that everyone needs to get to pass. Some of the questions in the app (ex. pharmacology) were downright impossible while other sections were too easy (ex. operative, endo, patient management) in comparison to the actual exam.
DAY 1:
Day 1 is comprised of 400 questions and you can take a break after every 100 questions. I highly recommend taking the 30min break after submitting your first 200 questions. I only took 1 break and I was most definitely feeling the burn about 250 questions into the exam.
After talking to my classmates, it seems like the questions you get are totally random. I for example had a plethora of patient management, pharm, and removable questions while some of my classmates had tons of questions on endo and operative. This unfortunately seems to be a mixed bag so your best bet is review enough to pass. Remember, you just need to know enough to get a 70% or higher to pass, you are NOT looking to get every question right on the exam. Correction: it is nearly impossible to know every single question on this exam. I personally thought Day 1 was pretty fair. There were easy and hard questions and then there were terribly worded questions that left you wondering if the question was written by an actual person or google translate.
Day 2:
All questions are case based and only 100 questions. This is the section where you have pictures, case details, xrays and charts so definitely get familiar with all of that. I thought day 2 was harder than day 1. Some of the radiographs are very blurry and hard to decipher, just do the best you can.
This is all I did to prepare myself for part 2. With the NBDE soon becoming one integrated exam, I don't know how helpful this review will be for future dental students. However for those who are still stuck taking part 1 and 2 I just want to say:
Good luck and happy studying!
I noticed on SDN that there are a lot of breakdowns for NBDE part 1 but rarely any recent NBDE part 2's. I recently passed my part 2 and figured I would share my experience with all of you.
Like my NBDE part 1 breakdown, 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.
Back to the breakdown:
I did not spend a lot of time preparing for part 2 compared to part 1. I had just finished taking finals for third year so a lot of the topics were still fresh in my mind. I decided to take a leap of faith and not review any topics that I was proficient in but instead concentrated on topics I had not reviewed in a long time.
I used about 2 weeks to prep my exam spending about 3-4 hours a day and upping the hours to 6-7 hours on the weekends. By end of 10 days, I had finished studying and used the last 4 days reviewing and doing questions.
The materials I used:
1) Dental decks (2016-2017 ed): I personally thought dental decks were overkill. I am a crammer and like to memorize information in an organized, concise manner. DD simply had too much extraneous information. I only used DD for areas I was deficient in.
2) Tuft's pharmacology and Mosby's patient management: I used these two to review for pharm and patient management which frankly were my weakest sections. I cannot recommend these two resources enough*** A lot of questions similar to Tuft's came up on my exam and Mosby's was very helpful in preparing me for patient management section.
Some of my classmates also used dental busters to review, PLEASE DO NOT ask me about dentin/dental busters or any other form of study material, I only used the materials listed above.
2) Dental Board Mastery app: I used this in conjunction with DD. While this app was a must for me in part 1, I thought the app for part 2 was only okay at best. I went through all the questions but in hindsight I do not think this is a holy grail app that everyone needs to get to pass. Some of the questions in the app (ex. pharmacology) were downright impossible while other sections were too easy (ex. operative, endo, patient management) in comparison to the actual exam.
DAY 1:
Day 1 is comprised of 400 questions and you can take a break after every 100 questions. I highly recommend taking the 30min break after submitting your first 200 questions. I only took 1 break and I was most definitely feeling the burn about 250 questions into the exam.
After talking to my classmates, it seems like the questions you get are totally random. I for example had a plethora of patient management, pharm, and removable questions while some of my classmates had tons of questions on endo and operative. This unfortunately seems to be a mixed bag so your best bet is review enough to pass. Remember, you just need to know enough to get a 70% or higher to pass, you are NOT looking to get every question right on the exam. Correction: it is nearly impossible to know every single question on this exam. I personally thought Day 1 was pretty fair. There were easy and hard questions and then there were terribly worded questions that left you wondering if the question was written by an actual person or google translate.
Day 2:
All questions are case based and only 100 questions. This is the section where you have pictures, case details, xrays and charts so definitely get familiar with all of that. I thought day 2 was harder than day 1. Some of the radiographs are very blurry and hard to decipher, just do the best you can.
This is all I did to prepare myself for part 2. With the NBDE soon becoming one integrated exam, I don't know how helpful this review will be for future dental students. However for those who are still stuck taking part 1 and 2 I just want to say:
Good luck and happy studying!
