How Solomon Organized his Schedule to Pass the INBDE

Hello everyone! My name is Solomon Elias, I’m from Houston, Texas and I am a third year at Tufts Dental. Thanks to Bootcamp, I was able to pass my INBDE on the first try!

As a third year, it may seem daunting to find time to study while you’re trying to navigate through all the challenges that dental school brings. I found that starting my studies early really made all the difference and helped alleviate a lot of stress that is associated with this exam. 

Solomon's Schedule

Personally, I set aside 2 months prior to my exam date in order to tackle the subjects more gradually, and to allow myself an opportunity to keep up with my dental school responsibilities. For the first month, I devoted my time to the Mental Dental videos, watching at least 2-3 videos a night (during the school week) and up to 10-12 (on weekends). After I would finish a video series, I would try to reference my notes, if I had some free time in between classes/patients, which helped important topics stick in my head. In the month leading up to my exam, I really beared down and tried to absorb as much information from Dr. Ryan’s study slides as possible. I coupled that with the question sets that Bootcamp offered, and found that I learned a lot more information from reading the answer explanations, even if I got the given questions right.

Of course, I challenged myself to also keep up my Bootcamp daily warmup streak, and it helped motivate me to utilize the site even more. Towards the last 2 weeks, I tried to answer up to 450-500 questions a day to help build my testing stamina. While day 1 of the exam is only 360 questions, I wanted to make sure that I built my ‘test-taking endurance’. With the week leading up to the exam, I focused on questions that I flagged to really ensure that I had that information locked down. 

Thoughts After the INBDE

As far as the testing experience goes, I really did feel prepared after going through Bootcamp in its entirety. While it is a long and stressful experience, it was very reassuring to see many similar questions, and even cases on the INBDE that I had seen on Bootcamp.

Bootcamp was worth the investment for me, and a lot of my classmates have also found success using the site. The journey of passing the boards was not easy, but it is very manageable and Bootcamp gives you the tools to succeed!