1)I took my exam yesterday and happy that its finally over.

To go in details about
the new pattern I didn’t find much difference in the old papers and new
pattern.There are more true/false 1uestions, more questions with “ all except one”,
TMJ, clinical cases (testlets) and 3-4 on ethics which were associated with testlets
only ( that makes it easier to answer). Most annoying thing I found was all the
teslets in a row which makes your mind go numb.Lots of repeat questions. Ample of
time to complete and review your exam. That’s all I can say about new pattern.

2) I just got home from my test session for NBDE I. The highlights of exam were:
1.TMJ – There were a lot of questions about TMJ, it’s ligaments, specially the
Capsular, and as usual, many Lateral Ptrygoid ones.
2. The Anatomic science Qs as far as I recall were all ( except a few) on head and
neck. There were at least 2 on Upper Limb, Hands and Thorax. Some on GI,
particularly on Esophagus and its mascular layers, and its anatomical limits.
3. Embryonic origin of intrinsic muscles of the tongue.
4. Cell predominating the chronic periodontic inflammation.
5.A clinical vignette on vWD, as well as some on Asthma, CVA, IDDM, Oral
candidiasis, and Xerostomia.
6. Langerhans cell tumor, Histiocytosis X
7. Stomach’s Venous Drainage
8. R&L Phrenic nerve and the path they travel in the thorax
9.Temporalis bone Foramina
10. Dental Anatomy:

None, not even 1 picture in DA section! Many Qs on primary dentition, Age of

calcification of permanent teeth, at least 4 Qs on anterior and posterior determinants
of occlusion and their effect on height of cusps. Horizontal and vertical overlap,
Bennett immediate side shift.

11. Ethics:2-3 Qs, one I could answer using the cards from Dental Decks ( this new
ethic card are available free on the Deck’s website).

I wish I had the time to do the previously published exams once more, I didn’t have
most of them though, but I remember many repeats from what I read before ( 1979-
80—86-87-97-98-2004 pilot). Dental Decks and published exams would be more
than enough to ace the exam ( Although I’m not sure that I did it ). Try your best,
believe in yourself, and you’re going to be just fine.

3) 1. There is no need to worry about the new format. As all the questions are
mixed, there is less strain on your brain whilst you are staring at the computer under
surveillance!!
2.Read the dental decks, and you WILL need additional texts and wikipedia!!
Especially for biochemistry and understand how the metabolic systems work
including enzymes, there is no need to learn every enzyme, just know the MAIN
important ones. Understand pathology too in terms of medications, treatments and
etiologies for COMMON diseases, this is where the testlets come into full effect. Do
the clinical vignettes!! In 2006-2007 decks.
3.Exams, Exams, Exams! Do all of them, I would recommend doing the whole lot
that ASDA offers, the newer pilot exam is more like the new format, and there were
a handful of questions from the early 1983 papers!
4.Exams, Exams, Exams! Keep doing them and find out why you are getting
questions wrong and what you need to read up, in the end it will all add up
somehow. There were very many repeats from old papers.
5.Read the question properly in the exam because after doing the practice tests you
get very accustomed to just circling the response you remembered from before.
They DO change the question and keep the same order of responses.
6.There were some questions in the test that you will not get or just think wtf?? But
it’s not that many hopefully, depends on how much you read around on the topic
that you are weak on, but do remember you can’t know everything or can you!!??!
7.Total time spent was 2 months and I am a practicing dentist, so study time was
difficult. I hope for the best.

4) 1. READ the current dental decks. Clinical samples and look at the picture cards.
2. Do ALL the current exam papers available from ASDA.
3. The newer pilot exam i mentioned is the 2004 pilot exam. Everybody is talking
about the new 2007 exam. I AM NOT SURE IF THIS EVEN EXISTS. I would advise to
stop wasting time looking for this and look at the material you already have. The
exam is similar to the 2004 pilot!
4. There is no real easy way to say it, but you have to read ALL the material, the
boards, i found test from everywhere, from the dreaded embryology right through to
infection control.
5. Know the Head and Neck region very well, i mean the vessels and nerves and yes
the triangles of the neck. Know the main vessles that supply the brain and eyes and
the COMMON lesions that affect them (stroke), Circle of Willis!!
6. Know your blood work, INR, aPTT, Bleeding time, Factors, vWF. What affects
them, medications, genetic disorders, etc...... Know how the disorders are inherited.
7. Autoimmune diseases, very important!!
8. COMMON conditions, IDDM, NIDDM, hyper/ hypothyroidism, RA, OA etc....
9. COMMON oral bacteria in acute and chronic conditions and their MANAGEMENT.
10. best of luck people, keep at it, keep ya head up!!

5) . There is no need to worry about the new format. As all the questions are mixed,
there is less strain on your brain whilst you are staring at the computer under
surveillance!!
2.Read the dental decks, and you WILL need additional texts and wikipedia!!
Especially for biochemistry and understand how the metabolic systems work
including enzymes, there is no need to learn every enzyme, just know the MAIN
important ones. Understand pathology too in terms of medications, treatments and
etiologies for COMMON diseases, this is where the testlets come into full effect. Do
the clinical vignettes!! In 2006-2007 decks.
3.Exams, Exams, Exams! Do all of them, I would recommend doing the whole lot
that ASDA offers, the newer pilot exam is more like the new format, and there were
a handful of questions from the early 1983 papers!
4.Exams, Exams, Exams! Keep doing them and find out why you are getting
questions wrong and what you need to read up, in the end it will all add up
somehow. There were very many repeats from old papers.
5.Read the question properly in the exam because after doing the practice tests you
get very accustomed to just circling the response you remembered from before.
They DO change the question and keep the same order of responses.
6.There were some questions in the test that you will not get or just think wtf?? But
it’s not that many hopefully, depends on how much you read around on the topic
that you are weak on, but do remember you can’t know everything or can you!!??!
7.Total time spent was 2 months and I am a practicing dentist, so study time was
difficult. I hope for the best.

6) i thought the exam was really what i expected it to be. yes the new format was
good and bad. there were lots of thing i liked about it and lots that i didnt. i was
stuck on some questions that made me really frustrated but that could have
happened even if the exam was the old format. there is no way you can know
everything but know what you know well. it was really nothing new or totally
unexpected. meaning there were questions that i spent 5 secs on and there were
question i spend mins on and then had to go over them later and i still got them
wrong. basically, if i were to advise you on how to well prepare for it, i'd say know
the concepts. dont memorize the decks and think that you will be ready just by
knowing the decks cold. take as many old exams as you can. i think that going over
the old exams helped me as much as the decks did. i had about 5 pages of notes i
that wrote down as soon as i got there to make sure i dont forget them or things
that you have to have written down so you can access it quickly( occlusion patterns,
eruption patterns and what age) and of the 5 pages only one page was really
rewarding. but you are gonna say why did i think i needed to had all those 5 pages
then? well, because when i went over the old exams, i thought thats what i needed.
when i took the real thing, none of that showed up. bottom line, you may end up
having a bunch of things show up that you are good at or may end up with bunch of
things that you didnt spend time on. honestly your luck plays a major role in it as
well.

i am being very careful and making sure o dont violate any ADA regulations so if you
get anything out of this post is make sure you go over all of the old exams that you
can get your hands on. questions may be different but the concepts are still the
same. dental anatomy does not change over the years so do as many of old exams
as you can. same goes for all of the other sections. old concepts and same things
just written differently to test you if you know the concept. know the exceptions of
the rules. if you look at the old exams, they love those "exception" type questions. ie
transcription of all DNA viruses occur in the nuc except for XXXXX. this was not on
my exam but i am just making a point. know that DNA viruses do thier thing in the
nuc but theres always exception. bottom line, do the decks and do it 3 times. dont
just memorize the answers. know why the answer you picked is right and why the
rest are false.

i hope this help. last thing i wanna say is about the new format. i was scared at first
but i didnt think that the cases were that bad. some were flat out stupid easy and
some were just very confusing. again, you cant get everything right. if you are me,
you just wanna get half right and i hope thats what i didn.

anyways, good luck with all your studies and please do not ask me specifics of the
exam as i cannot do that. good luck and best wishes.

no i wrote out about 5 pages of notes as soon as i started the exam.

its was the stuff that i had memorized before and thought it would be smart to have
them in front of me the whole time during the exam. they were mainly the occlusion
chart (what cusp occldes where etc), the eruption dates, the calcification dates, the
classes of viruses (whats RNA whats DNA, whats enveloved what non env etc) and
other things like the TCA cycle etc etc.

i think that its smart to have those written out as soon as you start so that when you
come across a question about those, it will take you 5 secs to answer.

7) i bought the crack the nbde but i honestly did not think that it helped me much. i
only got 2 or 3 questions that were similar to what that software had in it. so was it
worth my 75 dollars? i'd say no. with that said, you never know what quesions you
will see on your exam so it ma be worth it for you. thats really hard to say.
as for the kaplan course, i didnt take the kaplan course. i had the book but it was
waaaay too detailed and so i only read sections that i was having problems with.
i really dont think you need the kaplan course to just pass the exam. however, if you
want to do really well i assume it would help since every section and eerything is
explained in much detail.

as for the material that i have (old exams etc) i wont be selling it at least till i know i
passed the exam first.

8) hi,
nothing to worry about the new pattern it wa easy paper i have ever seen till now.u
have scenerios and ?s related to it.paper was so easy .so just prepare as much as u
can and be cool before appearing for exam which makes ur exam even more
easier.all the best to all who are about to appear.GOOD LUCK

hi,
i have just studied kaplan materials and wheelers for DA.i have searched somethings
in google.ya i think there were 4-5 ethic ?s.rest all the paper was easy .i have never
seen such an easy paper till now.so dont worry guys .just prepare well and give the
exam COOLLY.good luck to 1 and all

9) How I studied: Dental Decks 2004 and old exams

How long I studied: 30 days, 6-8 hours a day
Back Ground: 3.1 gpa about middle of the class

What I thought of the exam:

It was 99% identical to the 2004 Pilot exam. Many repeats from previous years. I
felt well prepared and think I will score low 90's upper 80's.

I am just writing this to let people know the new format is nothing to worry about.
Having the questions mixed up, I believe, makes it easier. I say easier because you
don't burn out on one subject. As for the testlets, you already know the info and are
just applying it. Not bad at all. Honestly, the decks covered all but maybe 10
questions on the exam.

Thats all. Study decks and old exams and you will ace this thing.

No problem guys.

I was in the same boat a month ago. Not knowing what to do. When I first picked up
the decks I thought I was screwed. It took me two weeks to cover them just once.

Then I covered the decks one more time in 4 days. After that I did 1998 and a few
years back old exam. Honed in where I was weak, again using decks and wikipedia.

Finally I covered the decks again and did every single released exam. IF I did not
know what one of the anwsers were, I looked it up in wikipedia. The key is knowing
why its right and why the other choices are wrong.

Oh yeah, I did the 2004 exam as the last one. This was to make sure I was ready for
the real deal.
I hope I help some people

Questions are in identical format to the old questions. Only difference is they are
mixed up. There is no big deal about being mixed up. You already know the info.

Decks and old exams are enough. If you want to get above 90 for sure, then look
through your old school notes and exams. I felt my exams at school were much
harder than Part I. But like I said, I only did old released exams and decks. And
when I say do decks, KNOW THEM. Do not skip anything on the back.

Testlets, people, stop freakingout!!!! Go to the 2004 pilot exam and they ask
questions like that. On the ADA website is an identical example of what they look
like. No big deal.

And remember, the new format is just that, a new format. Nothing has changed with
the material covered. An example would be the new corvette. It looks different from
the old one, but its still a corvette that has a $hit load of HP, takes gas to work and
has 2 doors. The only thing that changed on the corvette is the look, just like Part 1,
only the look has changed.

No problem

Just study and you will do fine.

Doing decks once and reading them over throughly will make you pass. Doing decks
twice will make you do better. Knowing what is on the back of the deck before
flipping it over will get you 90+
The key is DOING ALL OLD EXAMS. I had a repeat from the 1978 exam, but be
careful. Somethings do change and even though an old questions says its right and
you might be wary of it, look it up. I found a few questions that I studied during d-
school that were different from old exams

But hey, we are doctors and can figure this out.

10) I do completely agree with all the information that dental dork and Z -dentist
gave us about new version test.There is nothing so different from
2004.I think if you read the dental decks 2-3 times and do the released exams 2-3
times you're gonna be fine.I haven't got my result yet,because I took it like 2 weeks
ago.Generally it wasn't like a scary test.I think there were like 4 tests in whole tests
that I had no idea about it,and I had never heard of it.Although ,I was not quiet sure
about 150 of other questions,but it wasn't like I have never heard of it,That 150 was
more of a challenge .The rest was so easy and some repeated tests of dental decks
and released ones,and that's why I say repeat them 2-3 times.

11) For these kind of long tests ,which takes like 7 hours if you didn't have enough
rest the day before ,you'll end up being sleepy in the second part of the
test.Although,the timing was not an issue for me (I mean if you know the material
you have enough time to answer and also review your marked questions) but the
day before I was so stressed out and I couldn't sleep enough ,so at the end I just left
the test after I was finished and I didn't review because I was so sleepy and tiered.It
was hell of aday!!!!!!!!!!!!

12) here is my experience :

first of all, the new format made the exam more difficult , a scenario is given then
followed by questions concerning this scenario, the questions are either correlated to
each other or not. As for me, i felt that these testlets were the most difficult part of
the exam.

The rest of the exam wasn`t what i expected, many questions about things i`ve
never heard about before! i had to guess alot, many questions on xerostomia,
autoimmune diseases, detailed info in embryology, had no pistures at all,Dental
anatomy was as usuall the best & easieist part.

At the end of the exam i had about 170 MARKED questions which i don`t know
weather right or wrong, the rest 230 questions i think 90% correct.

I don`t know if i could pass the exam or not, i feel i made very bad, marking 170
questions is alot i think.

I had 78 testlet questions today.

the last 40 questions in the first half and the first 38 in the begining of the 2nd half. I
think my testlet went up to J. I forget.
12) hi. i believe this new format is hard for all of us. coz its new kind of q specially
the clinical stuff . its need more than 1 min to slove. coz u need to read the medical
history of the patient first . then u need to anserwer the q. and that wast my time
alot. its need more than 1 min to solve every clinical q . if i retake the exam. i will
try to manage my time specially in this kind of q. belive me its not hard. but just
because its new type and we are not preparing or having realsed exam like new
format. even pilot exam.before my exam i did it many time. and i score with pilot
2004 (89) . my advice to u and for any 1 in new format. its to mange u time .
because time mangemnt is the big problem . that wat i believe
. then dont worry about the patient mangment / dental ethics . u can download from
(http://deckscorp.com/Professional%20...nagement .pdf
its only about 4 q for this stuff.
again. its not hard. but its time consuming. i belive if i take again. i will do better. i
wish that i dont need to retake.

13) hi there. i depend 90 % on dental deck , i read some topic (patholgy/micro)

kaplen note. i believe dental deck its not enough . in clinical stuff. u have to be very
good in ( patient compromised ) like asthma patient, diabetic ,TB,any kind of
syncope . any dental emergency in dental work u should be very good with it .
actually this my first experience in NBDE . always first experience not eassy.

14) hi there. we are in the same boat.. mine exam too was sooo tough . i marked
alot. and thers no repeated at all. even in testles q . so diffcult and i marked more
than 120 q. some student say its easy and alot of repeated . ut mine no. i study all
realesd exam, dental deck, most kaplen , in day of exam. make no sense . i was well
prepared .

15) There were some questions regarding diabetes however they were not straight
forward. 2-3 questions about things never heard of.some behavioural related
questions.
I didnt do my best preparing for the exam ( I hate basic sciences)

16) I took my part I yesterday , and let me tell you something, there were many
many repeats, either the whole Q even the order of the choices were the same, or
they'd changed it a lil bit but either way, it sure makes a big diff if you go through
the released stuff from ASDA, What a pity I just did only some years and only once,
but even like that, it was definitely helpful.

17) I took my exam yesterday and happy that its finally over. To go in details about
the new pattern I didn't find much difference in the old papers and new
pattern.There are more true/false qustions, more questions with " all except one",
TMJ, clinical cases (testlets) and 3-4 on ethics which were associated with testlets
only ( that makes it easier to answer). Most annoying thing I found was all the
teslets in a row which makes your mind go numb.Lots of repeat questions. Ample of
time to complete and review your exam. That's all I can say about new pattern.

18)

Just gave the dreaded exam in new pattern!I guess the whole thing has been
overrated!I didn't find it so hard or uncrackalble,if that's a word.Well,good
preparation,and a good amount of revision should do it.Honestly,what difference
does it make if the questions are mixed up,or given in separate forms!Its not like
you could only recollect the answer if you knew what subject it's from!!!!
Anyways,for all the people about to give.......a lot of questions were on the TMJ
capsule and TMJ.Lots of questions on viral diseases.From biochem,proteins and
amino acids.All I can recollect now.

19) Exam Experience...

I thought first that this new Format for NBDE 1 will be much easier to
score... but believe me its not a cake walk.... they really make u work
hard to score... I only got 20/400 q's repeated from past papers
specially unreleased ones....

dental anatomy
only 2 q's on lateral movements of teeth with any diagram... usually
they give atleast 15-20 q's if u follow past papers papttern... much
was on tooth morpho, specially they were on premolars and canines...
but were not diffiult...but now they have really made the wordings more
lengthier on q's... e.g,... previosly they would've asked which tooth
has Oblique ridge or hows oblique ridge forms?..

but now the same question is asked as...

" The triangular ridge on distofacial cups of maxillary mollar and the
distal cuspal ridge of misuolingual cusp of same tooth form which
structure".......... may be I'm miissing the right wording it but u can
guess now its the same old question but the wording is diff...

Physi/Bio...
Molecular Bio q's... Protein metabolism... Kidney function.... acid
base balance ...respiration... mainly from these.. Immuno was
general... not very specific...

Patho/Micro..
Myco, drugs related to micro,... main focuss..

Anatomy..
lot of histo.. infact too many q's on histo... make sure ur histo is
good.... q's like desmosomes, junctions.. same kind of q's repeated but
with different example sof sight .. bone histo... Muscles of
mastication i think got 25 q's...

Cases
12 testlets.... 6 testlest - 40 - in first session............ 6
testlets -38- q's in second session.
testlets were okay not too difficult..
to summarise.. the paper was not a cake walk as i thought it would
be... they had covered almost every thing in it.......unless u have
studied very well each topic its really to even pass the exam....

one last sincere advice.... just go thru First Aid NBDE 1 book..... and
solve unreleased papers... thats it..... don't go for anything else....
First Aid NBDE 1 book covers almost everything.... but u have to really
memorize that book....

20) done wit part 1 today...i hardly saw repeats from previous papers..may b aroun
10 familar questions from te papers...most of te biochem was on amino acids n
proteins..dint c questions on metabolism...tmj tmj tmj they test u so much on
tat...so ppl appearin for ur exams b prepared...not a single pic for oral anat. ethics
were related to te testlets... ma suggestion for preparation...dont jus kno te question
papers...also reason out y is te answer rite...they keep te question n change te
choices...