Let’s be honest. Studying NBDE1 by myself while still working is for me one of the hardest things to do. Do you ever have the feeling of passing exam but having no clue how you manage to pass it? Yes that's exactly me. I write this post with a humble mind that I am not better than you and I am not a master on this. I just want to share what I did and hopefully can shed some light on your questions somehow.
Let’s start with material first. The “Bible” of NBDE is Dental Deck. You can either buy the old versions from amazon, ebay or buy the newest version directly from their website www.dentaldecks.com From their website you can either purchase online version, flashcard version or both. It’s very pricey though, from $250-$300. If you are on a budget and feel fine with older versions, amazon and ebay are your best bet. From my experience, older version is fine. The DD company “fix” something every year and I don’t really know what is the difference between the newest version and the previous one. I first laid my hand on DD version 2007-2008 or so in 2012. Later I decided to purchase a newer one from amazon – version 2011-2012. The newest one was 2013-2014 at that time. I passed the exam in 10/2014. No problem at all.
Other than DD, there are so many other resources to choose from. Some of the popular books are First Aid, Mosby, Kaplan, etc. We also have some apps/website like Dental Board Mastery, Board Vitals or Crackthenbde. Choosing which books or app to buy is a matter of personal preference. I myself got First Aid book from amazon. The only reason was that it’s one of the cheapest book I could find. Money was super tight back then. I haven’t read other books or apps yet so I can’t compare for you sorry.
The last but not least, released questions from ADA is a must. It’s not that you will see the same questions in your exam, but that it will help you understand the way ADA putting questions together. One thing my friend told me when I prepared for part 2 (but it should be the same for part 1) is if I scored around 60% or more on those papers, I should do fine at the exam. However I read somewhere on the internet that one should aim for 75% actually. I have no clue. But when I passed part 2, I scored around 60-66% in those questions. These released questions you can buy directly from ADA or again – amazon/bestbuy. I didn't take the test after I finished studying. I didn't even finish studying when I took the part 1 exam. I took it while studying so I had some idea how the questions looked like and which parts would show up again and again.
So, how did I study? Being honest with you, I don’t like DD. It asks you to memorize points instead of the whole concept. I don’t know about you, but for me I can’t study by memorizing. I need to understand the link between this and that, then where it can be wrong, then how we correct it. I started with DD first, then unable to understand I turned to First Aid. It helped for a while but then it became too much. I completely forgot whatever I learned a week ago after cramming too much. I went back to DD and then changed my mind again. Later I found out that it’s impossible to remember everything from these material. Even if I remembered then, if the questions would be a bit different, there would be no way I could apply these memory to answer it. Then I turned to the website I love the most – youtube. There I searched about kidney, liver, nerve, brain, carbohydrate, lipid, cell structure, etc – everything. These videos can go from very basic for general community to specifically for medical students. My logic was easy – if they ask about renal pelvis, at least I should know where it is then I may have a chance to guess the answer. Among all the channels I watched, I think Khan Academy is the best – very informative, easy to remember, basic but not so basic knowledge.
Also from that experience, I found out that I learn by really think about the topic. When I write notes, the actual process of deciding what to put in notes, what not to, what is important, what I-can-never-remember-so-just-ignore-it, etc. Once I read my notes again, it’s not what in the notes I remembered but the way I wrote it. Personally I think it should be the combination of both formats. You can use DD to learn, then whatever you don’t understand, turn to books, apps or youtube. Try different ways of learning. You may be someone learning by ear – if so reading your notes out loud and recording to your phone so you can listen and learn while doing house chores or going to gym. If you learn by eyes, use tons of diagram, colors, arrows,etc.
Another important thing I did was to look for advice. I googled “how to learn NBDE part 1/ 2” and found out several blog pages discussing about this. I learned a bit here and there and applied what I thought would work for me in studying. There is a forum that everyone should know about once they want to chase this dream. It’s called studentdoctornetwork. There you will see groups of medical students, dental students, pharm students, international dentists and so on. People post questions and answer questions on a daily basis. I felt much better realizing that I was not alone and there were so many people also working hard for this.
My last piece of advice in studying NBDE is that you will never remember every-single-little-detail in those materials. It’s just mission impossible. So if you encounter a point that you don’t understand, try one more time then move on if still can't. Save your brain (and time) for things that you can remember. If it costs me 1 neuron to understand and remember the whole chapter, I’ll buy it. If it costs me 2 neurons for only 1,2 pages that absolutely don’t make sense at all, I’d rather spend those 2 neurons to remember another 2 chapters. Go for big concepts. How many percent you think they will ask about the trigeminal nerve, and how many percent you think they ask about metatarsal bones? If there is one question about the latter, there should be at least 5 questions about the previous. I will aim to score 5 rather than 1. I studied thoroughly dental anatomy and decided that I should not miss any questions from this part. I didn’t have time (or courage) to study biochemistry at all so I only learned basic concept from youtube and skipped the whole part. I still passed the board (and that still amazes me until now). I don’t say that you should also skip it, I say understanding the big picture is more important than memorizing little details.
