INBDE cheat sheets
Every sheet names the Foundation Knowledge and Clinical Content areas it answers to, prints the share of the exam those areas carry, and cites the issuing document and date behind each number. This page is the map: what the 26 sheets cover, what each part of the exam is worth, and what the set leaves out.
26 sheets · 500-item form · weights read from JCNDE's published test specification
36.2%
Diagnosis & Treatment Planning · 181 items
42.0%
Oral Health Management · 210 items
21.8%
Practice & Profession · 109 items
500
Items on one form · published, not estimated
What is on every sheet
Declared coverage
Each sheet prints the Foundation Knowledge and Clinical Content areas it answers to, in the exam's own codes. You can hold a sheet against the score report a failing candidate actually receives, which reports across the three component sections and the ten Foundation Knowledge areas, and see which part of it the sheet speaks to.
Declared weight
Each sheet prints the share of the exam its areas carry. The section figure is published by JCNDE. The per-sheet figure is our own arithmetic and is labelled an estimate every time it appears — including on this page.
Declared source
Every number carries the document it came from and the date that document was issued. Where two authorities disagree, both values print and the row is marked as one not to key an answer on. Where no number exists, the absence prints instead of a guess.
The published test specification
The whole exam on one grid. Rows are the three clinical component sections, columns are the ten Foundation Knowledge areas, and each cell is the percentage of the exam at that intersection. Multiply any figure by 5 for items on a 500-item form.
Source: JCNDE, INBDE Technical Report (2025 edition), Appendix C — INBDE Test Specifications. Open the Technical Report
JCNDE publishes one weight per clinical component section, and those three numbers decide how much of your preparation each part of the exam deserves. Oral Health Management is nearly twice Practice & Profession.
| Clinical component section | Clinical content areas | Published share | Items on a 500-item form |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diagnosis & Treatment Planning CC1–CC15 | 15 | 36.2% | 181 |
| Oral Health Management CC16–CC38 | 23 | 42.0% | 210 |
| Practice & Profession CC39–CC56 | 18 | 21.8% | 109 |
Source: JCNDE, INBDE Technical Report (2025 edition), Appendix C — INBDE Test Specifications. Item counts are the published percentage multiplied by 5, because one form carries 500 items.
The index
The set is built in four waves, in descending order of estimated exam share, with two deliberate exceptions: the cross-cutting numbers index ships first because it is what every other sheet cites, and two low-share sheets ship early because a wrong number in those areas is the kind of wrong number that matters most.
Availability
None of the 26 sheet bodies is published yet. A sheet body is clinical content, and Dentovio does not publish INBDE clinical material until it clears the credentialed-review gate that governs every clinical file in the product — the same gate that makes a file vanish from the site the moment its text changes. This index is publishable today because it contains no clinical content: it describes the exam's published structure and our weighting method, and nothing else.
The numbers index every other sheet cites, plus the two areas where being wrong costs the most and the single largest sheet in the set.
Sheet 1
Not weighted
numbers-and-sources
Its rows already count inside the sheets below, so it is not weighted again.
The cross-cutting index: every number the other sheets use, each one printed next to the document and date it came from.
Not yet published
Sheet 2
1.83%
medical-emergencies
estimated · about 9 of 500 items
One decision path from the first sign to the action, with each step tied to the source that defines it.
Not yet published
Sheet 3
1.83%
local-anesthesia
estimated · about 9 of 500 items
The calculation shown as a calculation, so the working is inspectable rather than memorised.
Not yet published
Sheet 4
9.65%
patient-box
estimated · about 48 of 500 items
How to read the case chart in the order the exam rewards, and which zones change the answer.
Not yet published
36.2% of the exam, and the block most prep material treats as an afterthought because it has no tidy discipline name.
Sheet 5
7.24%
diagnostic-tests
estimated · about 36 of 500 items
Which test the question is actually asking you to select, and what each one can and cannot settle.
Not yet published
Sheet 6
4.83%
medically-complex
estimated · about 24 of 500 items
One risk table instead of several that disagree, with every unsettled threshold marked as unsettled.
Not yet published
Sheet 7
4.83%
treatment-planning
estimated · about 24 of 500 items
The order a plan is built in, drawn so the re-evaluation point is visible as a decision.
Not yet published
Sheet 8
4.83%
examination
estimated · about 24 of 500 items
The examination as a sequence, because the order the exam expects is itself the content.
Not yet published
Sheet 9
4.83%
consent-communication
estimated · about 24 of 500 items
What has to be established, in what order, and what the record has to show afterwards.
Not yet published
Sheet 10
Not weighted
exam-english
Scoped to the 200 of 500 items delivered inside a case rather than to a clinical content area.
How the stem verbs work and what each one is asking for — written for candidates reading in a second language.
Not yet published
42.0% of the exam — the largest section, and the one most study lists already recognise.
Sheet 11
7.30%
restorative-esthetics
estimated · about 37 of 500 items
Four clinical content areas that rarely get a sheet of their own, including how outcomes are evaluated.
Not yet published
Sheet 12
4.86%
prosthodontics
estimated · about 24 of 500 items
The geometry drawn rather than described, plus what the written instruction to the laboratory has to carry.
Not yet published
Sheet 13
3.65%
prescribing
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
Built around the prescribing decision the exam tests, not around a drug-class catalogue.
Not yet published
Sheet 14
3.65%
dental-emergencies
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
Time-dependent decisions laid out on their real axes, each keyed to the guideline edition it comes from.
Not yet published
Sheet 15
3.65%
endodontics
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
The dual-diagnosis grid typeset as a table, read from the finding towards the name.
Not yet published
Sheet 16
3.65%
oral-surgery
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
The decision before the procedure, and the complication paths that follow from it.
Not yet published
Sheet 17
3.65%
occlusion-tmd-ortho
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
Two clinical content areas held on one sheet, with the classifications drawn as geometry.
Not yet published
Sheet 18
3.65%
abuse-substance-use
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
Duties that vary by jurisdiction, drawn as a fork instead of flattened into one national rule.
Not yet published
Sheet 19
3.04%
caries
estimated · about 15 of 500 items
Risk assessment through to recall interval, with the population-health area it connects to.
Not yet published
Sheet 20
1.83%
periodontics
estimated · about 9 of 500 items
The current classification as a table, with the edition and date it was published.
Not yet published
Sheet 21
1.83%
mucosal-osseous
estimated · about 9 of 500 items
Recognition organised by what you see first, with the nearest confusable named on every entry.
Not yet published
21.8% of the exam. Last by design: this is where our own question bank is already deepest, and sheets go where the drilling is thin.
Sheet 22
6.06%
evidence-public-health
estimated · about 30 of 500 items
Study design through to what a given measure can and cannot support — the home for FK10.
Not yet published
Sheet 23
3.63%
ethics-scope
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
The principles mapped, with the duty to refer shown as an endpoint rather than a footnote.
Not yet published
Sheet 24
3.63%
jurisprudence-records
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
Three clinical content areas that are usually compressed into a paragraph somewhere else.
Not yet published
Sheet 25
3.63%
practice-team-quality
estimated · about 18 of 500 items
Supervision, delegation and quality as an ordered ladder rather than a glossary.
Not yet published
Sheet 26
2.42%
infection-control
estimated · about 12 of 500 items
Classification through to processing method, with the standard and its date on every row.
Not yet published
About the estimate
JCNDE publishes no per-clinical-content-area weight. The section weights above are published. The per-sheet figure is Dentovio arithmetic — equal allocation across the section's clinical content areas — and is labelled an estimate everywhere it appears. See the full arithmetic.
The absences, printed
A study set’s gaps are usually invisible: you finish the material and never learn what was missing from it. These are ours, in writing.
FK1 carries 12.2% of the exam, more than any other Foundation Knowledge area — but anatomy is not a clinical content area, and the exam tests it through a clinical decision rather than on its own. It is carried inside the examination, anesthesia and oral-surgery sheets. Every sheet prints its FK codes, so you can audit that coverage yourself against the score report.
Same reason: they are foundation knowledge, tested through the clinical areas that use them. FK10 is the exception. At 9.8% of the exam it is concentrated in one place, so research methodology and analysis gets a sheet of its own rather than being scattered.
We do not hold a landmark-by-landmark corpus we can source, and we will not publish a picture atlas we cannot cite. Recognition material rides inside the sheet that tests the decision it belongs to. This omission is printed here rather than left for you to discover halfway through a study block.
Out of scope for the first 26, and recorded openly. Writing unreviewed morphology to fill a hole in a comparison table is the kind of shortcut this repository has already paid for once.
How we weight them sets out each of these gaps in full, with the document behind it.
Before you plan around any of this
The weights tell you what the exam is made of. They do not tell you where you stand in it. The free readiness mock is original, exam-style, and scored against the same blueprint structure this page describes — nothing to buy, and no score prediction.
Sources
Last verified 2026-08-05
INBDE® is a registered trademark of the American Dental Association, administered by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations (JCNDE). Dentovio is an independent prep provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by JCNDE or the ADA.
Dentovio provides independent educational preparation using original exam-style material. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by JCNDE, PSI, or any dental board, and it does not reproduce recalled exam questions.
This page describes exam structure and Dentovio's weighting method. It contains no clinical guidance, and nothing on it is legal, clinical, or licensure advice. Exam specifications change on JCNDE's schedule — confirm current requirements in JCNDE's own materials before you plan around them.
