# INBDE cheat sheets, scoped to the published blueprint

URL: https://dentovio.com/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. The sheets are part of the INBDE course; this page is the map to them — what the 26 cover, what each part of the exam is worth, and what the set leaves out.

Last verified 2026-08-05.

## What makes these sheets different

- **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.

![The published INBDE test specification as a three-by-ten grid. Rows are the three clinical component sections — Diagnosis and Treatment Planning at 36.2 per cent, Oral Health Management at 42.0 per cent, and Practice and Profession at 21.8 per cent. Columns are the ten Foundation Knowledge areas, with published column totals from 6.8 per cent at FK2 to 12.2 per cent at FK1. Each of the thirty cells shows the percentage of the exam at that intersection.](https://dentovio.com/images/inbde/inbde-test-specification.svg)

Source: JCNDE, INBDE Technical Report (2025 edition), Appendix C — INBDE Test Specifications.

## The three clinical component sections

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 a form carries 500 items.

## The 26 sheets

The set is built in four waves, in descending order of estimated exam share, with two deliberate exceptions: the cross-cutting numbers index is built 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.

The sheets are course material. They sit inside the INBDE course beside the modules they condense, not on this page — what you are reading is the map to the set, not the set. A sheet body is clinical content, so it reaches the course only where a credentialed dentist has signed off on that exact text, and it leaves again by itself if a word of it changes afterwards. Sheets still in that review are not in the course yet either, and we put no date on one: it lands when it clears. This index publishes today because it holds no clinical content at all — it describes the exam's published structure and our weighting method, and nothing else.

| # | Sheet | Slug | FK | CC | Estimated share | Where it is |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Numbers, and the Document Behind Each One | `numbers-and-sources` | FK1 FK2 FK5 FK6 FK7 FK8 FK9 | CC1 CC7 CC8 CC10 CC16 CC18–CC23 CC26 CC27 CC32 CC33 CC51 | Not weighted — Its rows already count inside the sheets below, so it is not weighted again. | In the INBDE course |
| 2 | Medical Emergencies in the Chair | `medical-emergencies` | FK8 FK1 FK6 | CC16 | 1.83% — estimated · about 9 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 3 | Local Anesthesia & Pain Control | `local-anesthesia` | FK8 FK1 FK2 | CC19 | 1.83% — estimated · about 9 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 4 | Reading the Patient Box | `patient-box` | FK9 FK6 | CC1 CC2 CC11 CC15 | 9.65% — estimated · about 48 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 5 | Diagnostic Tests & Choosing the Image | `diagnostic-tests` | FK2 FK3 FK6 FK10 | CC6 CC7 CC10 | 7.24% — estimated · about 36 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 6 | The Medically Complex Patient | `medically-complex` | FK6 FK5 FK8 FK4 | CC8 CC9 | 4.83% — estimated · about 24 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 7 | Diagnosis, Prognosis & Sequencing | `treatment-planning` | FK6 FK10 | CC4 CC12 | 4.83% — estimated · about 24 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 8 | Head, Neck & Intraoral Examination | `examination` | FK1 FK6 | CC3 CC5 | 4.83% — estimated · about 24 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 9 | Consent, Communication & Patient Attributes | `consent-communication` | FK9 | CC13 CC14 | 4.83% — estimated · about 24 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 10 | Exam English & the Patient-Box Sentence | `exam-english` | — | — | Not weighted — Scoped to the 200 of 500 items delivered inside a case rather than to a clinical content area. | Not in the course yet |
| 11 | Restoring Form, Function & Esthetics | `restorative-esthetics` | FK3 FK1 | CC30 CC36 CC37 CC38 | 7.30% — estimated · about 37 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 12 | Prosthodontics, Implants & the Lab Prescription | `prosthodontics` | FK3 FK1 | CC29 CC31 CC56 | 4.86% — estimated · about 24 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 13 | Prescribing & Drug Complications | `prescribing` | FK8 FK7 | CC26 CC27 | 3.65% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 14 | Dental Emergencies, Trauma & Hemorrhage | `dental-emergencies` | FK6 FK7 FK1 | CC17 CC18 | 3.65% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 15 | Pulpal & Periradicular Disease | `endodontics` | FK7 FK6 FK1 | CC20 CC28 | 3.65% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 16 | Oral Surgery: Decide, Then Do | `oral-surgery` | FK1 FK6 | CC32 CC33 | 3.65% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 17 | Occlusion, TMD & Orthodontic Problems | `occlusion-tmd-ortho` | FK1 FK3 | CC34 CC35 | 3.65% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 18 | Abuse, Neglect & Substance Use | `abuse-substance-use` | FK9 FK6 FK8 | CC24 CC25 | 3.65% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 19 | Caries: Risk, Diagnosis & Prevention | `caries` | FK2 FK7 | CC21 CC52 | 3.04% — estimated · about 15 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 20 | Periodontal Diseases | `periodontics` | FK5 FK6 FK7 | CC22 | 1.83% — estimated · about 9 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 21 | Oral Mucosal & Osseous Disease | `mucosal-osseous` | FK5 FK6 FK4 | CC23 | 1.83% — estimated · about 9 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 22 | Evidence, Population Health & Collaboration | `evidence-public-health` | FK10 FK9 | CC39 CC40 CC41 CC53 CC54 | 6.06% — estimated · about 30 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 23 | Ethics & the Limits of Your Scope | `ethics-scope` | FK9 | CC42 CC45 CC50 | 3.63% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 24 | Jurisprudence, Records & Risk | `jurisprudence-records` | FK9 | CC44 CC46 CC47 | 3.63% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 25 | Practice, Team & Quality | `practice-team-quality` | FK9 FK10 | CC43 CC49 CC55 | 3.63% — estimated · about 18 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |
| 26 | Infection Control & Preparedness | `infection-control` | FK7 FK5 | CC48 CC51 | 2.42% — estimated · about 12 of 500 items | Not in the course yet |

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.

The full arithmetic, and everything JCNDE does not publish, is set out at https://dentovio.com/inbde/cheat-sheets/how-we-weight-them.

## What this set does not cover

- **No standalone anatomy sheet.** 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.
- **No standalone physiology, microbiology or immunology sheet.** 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.
- **No radiographic landmark atlas.** 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.
- **No tooth-morphology sheet in this version.** 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.

### And what nobody publishes

- JCNDE publishes no per-clinical-content-area item count. The Item Development Guide states those allocations go to test constructors privately, so no sheet claims one.
- JCNDE does not publish a scored-versus-pretest split for the 500 items on a form.
- JCNDE publishes no candidate-performance breakdown by content area, so there is no defensible claim about which areas candidates find hardest — and we make none.
- The exam is not changing in 2027. On JCNDE's current published roadmap, subject-matter expert panels recommend specification updates in 2027 and new performance standards follow in 2028 — and no implementation date is published.

## Next step

A sheet is only worth the material behind it, so they live where that material is: inside the course, next to the module each one condenses and the item bank each one points at. The course page carries the price, what is in it today, and how its review state is recorded — including which files a credentialed dentist has signed off on and what happens to one when its text changes. [See what the INBDE course includes](https://dentovio.com/products/inbde).

## Sources

- [JCNDE, INBDE Technical Report (2025 edition), Appendix C — INBDE Test Specifications](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/inbde_technical_report.pdf)
- [JCNDE, 2026 INBDE Candidate Guide](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/2026_inbde_candidate_guide.pdf)
- [JCNDE, The Domain of Dentistry (July 2018) — FK1–FK10 and CC1–CC56](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/domain_of_dentistry_july2018.pdf)
- [JCNDE, INBDE Test Item Development Guide (July 2024)](https://jcnde.ada.org/inbde)

## Disclaimers

- 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.