Restorative (24%) and Prosthodontics (19%) together are 43% of the exam. Add Oral Pathology, Pain and TMD (13%) and you have 56%. Spend your hours in proportion, not evenly. Diagnosis, treatment planning and occlusion run through every subject, so they are never a separate topic to skip.

Every question is a patient decision: history, findings, images, then “what would you do”. Flashcards of facts will not train that. Work case-based questions and always ask why the wrong options are wrong. The wrong options are often “errors in clinical judgment” the exam is testing for.

The JCNDE offers free practice questions, and says they are best used to get familiar with item formats, not as a study aid. It also warns they may be out of date and that candidates should not limit preparation to them. Its own advice is to use clinical experience, textbooks and lecture notes as primary sources.

Start with standard questions of four or five options and one right answer. Once that is solid, move to long option lists and multi-select. The official single-answer sample has 14 options, so long lists are normal on the real exam.

The patient box is the information available at the visit. If an area is empty, assume the information is unknown or not available. If no allergies are listed, assume no known allergies. Endodontic results may come as a chart: percussion and palpation as + or -, cold test as + or “no response”, plus electric pulp test readings. Learn to read that chart at a glance.

With a long option list, form your own diagnosis or plan from the case first, then look for it. If you read the list first, plausible distractors will pull you off your own reasoning.

In each task you choose the appropriate medicine from a list, then set four things for it: the tablet or capsule strength, the total number dispensed, the number taken per dose, and how often to take it. One task is an antibiotic and one is an analgesic. Check the patient box for allergies and medical conditions before you pick the drug. Practise all four items until you never skip one.

Some questions use a lifelike 3D model you rotate, zoom and move. The JCNDE has an online tutorial so you can practise before you arrive. On the real exam, a question mark in the top right corner shows how to use the model, but you do not want to be learning the controls under the clock.

Seat time is 6 hours 45 minutes, made of four 75-minute question sections plus the prescription tasks. Practise in 75-minute blocks with no pausing, and do at least one run of all four sections back to back before test day. Use the three optional scheduled breaks (10, 30 and 10 minutes). Time taken on unscheduled breaks is deducted from your testing time.

Exam questions are confidential and copyrighted. Sharing or using remembered questions can void results and lead to legal action. It also gives you a false picture of the exam. Train on original practice material instead.