Mouthing Off

Failure Rate for NBDE Part II – JCNDE Meeting Follow-Up

Dental News

by Kim Schneider  |  on April 28th, 2010  |  16 comments

Dear ASDA Members,

Last week, the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations (JCNDE) held its annual meeting in Chicago. One of the major topics of discussion at the meeting was the recent rise in the failure rate on Part II of the NBDE, an issue affecting many of you over the past year. Rich Carlile (VCU ’11) and voting commissioner Kari Cunningham (Case Western ’10) represented ASDA, and for over two hours the JCNDE debated several requests made by ASDA and other organizations represented on the Joint Commission. Although the JCNDE thoroughly discussed all of our requests — some of which received significant support from other commissioners — the JCNDE concluded that no major changes should be made at this time to the Part II examination. The decisions were made on facts explained in the document linked below. Although disappointing, be assured that Rich and Kari represented you well at the meeting. The debate on Part II was robust, comprehensive and fact-based; the JCNDE listened carefully to students’ concerns.

To help students better understand the process by which the exam is scored, the JCNDE responded to a list of frequently asked questions submitted by the previous ASDA Board of Trustees. You will notice that several of the answers reference a technical report prepared by the JCNDE. We’ve provided the relevant pages of this document.

Although ASDA was unable to officially shorten the time that candidates must wait to retake the exam, the JCNDE does have an appeals process. If you need to retake the exam before the 90 day waiting period, please be in contact with the deans at your dental school to review the procedure. While not guaranteed, ASDA continues to pressure the JCNDE to accept all reasonable requests.

ASDA engaged in ongoing discussions with the ADA in the months leading up to this meeting, and their cooperation and support for ASDA throughout this dialogue was unwavering.

Early next week, ASDA will send out a podcast interview with our JCNDE representative, Rich Carlile, in which he will respond to questions about the recent meeting, describe his role in the Part II debate and provide some insight into upcoming issues in national board exams. We understand the urgency of this situation for many of you. Know that the ASDA leadership continues to communicate with the ADA and the JCNDE, updating them on student concerns. Please feel free to email me if you find that any of your questions were not answered by this letter, the documents linked below or Rich’s podcast. ASDA’s leadership is committed to advocating on your behalf and we always appreciate feedback on how we can best support you through these challenging times.

Sincerely yours,

Corwyn Hopke
President
American Student Dental Association

Linked documents:
JCNDE FAQs
Relevant JCNDE Report Pages

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Comments (16)

  1. Lena Tuesday - 13 / 07 / 2010 Reply
    Send a respectful letter informing them about the hardship of their new NBDE-2 questions and scoring by going to: http://www.ada.org/22.aspx then choose "National Board Exam" As they have made super hard since the end of 2009 that many students are failing it once, twice and even three times which will freeze them for one year. A group of fine students studied for 3 months First Aid, Kaplan, Dental Decks and released tests did not pass it! Either change scoring way or make the questions easier to answer by an undergraduate student or sell us study materials that you bring the questions from.
  2. Jake Tuesday - 13 / 07 / 2010 Reply
    OMG my friends and I are not the only ones! We studied like crazy too and failed the second time! They are after the re-take money for sure
  3. John Monday - 16 / 08 / 2010 Reply
    Same here, failed the second time and I am one of the top students on my class!!! It was supposed to be a lot easier than NBDE-1 WHY?!!
  4. Bob Wednesday - 25 / 08 / 2010 Reply
    I just took the test for the second time and it was completely unreasonable. It's failing the wrong people and making the exam a guessing game. The questions were so random it just benefits those who share answers and cheat. I still refuse to do that and I am being punished for my integrity. I graduated from school with honors and now may have to wait 8 months before I receive a license. ASDA..you are elected to represent us. Please be prepared with failure rate information at the next joint commission meeting and the hardships the exam has created for students and there families. Please continue the efforts to re-evaluate the wait period, the questions asked, and the overall fairness of the exam. We must be heard! Thank You, Bob
  5. claudia Tuesday - 05 / 10 / 2010 Reply
    I am sooo sad... I fail for second time first time 74 , second 74...the same..and I got 25 right question more than the first time... ....I really don't understand....I just one point ....How many question is one point???
  6. Neil P Thursday - 07 / 10 / 2010 Reply
    Whatever, So you guys are top of your class but failing a test where majority of people pass. Something doesn't seem right. I think you are full of sh@t. This test is difficult but not impossible, I doubt any of you were top of your class. Neil
  7. Bob Smith Thursday - 04 / 11 / 2010 Reply
    Neil, I am not a liar, please do not assume: in this case you are wrong. People are seriously effected by the change in the exam and you are in no position to write ignorant coments at 4:47 am. I graduated #6 in my class. I'm not saying I am smarter than anyone in my class, I just worked extremely hard to finish in that position. I assure you the new exam is failing the wrong people. This is evident throughout my class. Some of the worst students passed the first attempt. Sorry, but I disagree with you. Thanks, Bob
  8. Sam Monday - 17 / 01 / 2011 Reply
    I agree with Bob. I passed first attempt, but there are a lot of extremely qualified people not passing. I wanted to mention the letter sent to JCDE from the current president was exceptional. It did a great job of pointing out the increased failure rate that has reached near 40% in comparison to around 12% in years past. Thats the statistic they can't seem to dodge with they're computer like responses. All the dental schools in the nation didn't randomly accept one bad class. Thanks for the help ASDA officers; we need a sound voice in this battle. Sam Jones
  9. Fred Thursday - 17 / 02 / 2011 Reply
    Failed it for the second time!!! 68 then 69!!..even though in all of the subjects my correct answers were over 50% of the total questions of each subject....I am supposed to be working as a dentist somewhere in US now to start paying my huge debt!!! Thanks ADA commission of testing, why don't your old heads sit for over 12 hours answering 600 questions and let us see how great and mighty you are. ADA needs to create a study material for us that the darn covers there new darn test formula
  10. Neil P Monday - 21 / 02 / 2011 Reply
    Please send me a copy of the letter saying failure rates have hit 40%. I fI read the statistics correctly, if you went to an ACCREDITED school, failure rate was 10-12% The failure rate may be 40% for second time takers. Where do you guys come up with your crap. Maybe if you spend half as much time studying as you do griping you would pass the test.
    • Random Tester Tuesday - 22 / 02 / 2011
      Info is from newest released statistics from JCDE and is just under 40 percent since the change in 2009. Either way with 20+ years in the education system dental students are very educated and have obviously excelled the entire way. So for ANY amount to fail a test is strange. Most of us have never failed a test in our entire lives. I find it absurd not to think something is wrong with the exam. Poor wording of questions leads to guessing and that's the main problem. Questions should test students general knowledge of a subject matter, not how they are tricked by a poorly worded question. instead of ranking a question as difficult when a percent of test takers miss it; consider the question may be misleading of have several good answers. Neil. This is a student forum! I assume you are either not a student or a type of person that doesn't have a lot of friends. If you are the latter and ever wonder why that is, just read your responses in this forum.
  11. Neil P Saturday - 26 / 02 / 2011 Reply
    Hey Random tester, You are right I am not a student because I can pass my exams. And your comments on friends is a bit of low blow, too bad you are wrong, my friends actually pass exams. LOSERS! I just looked up the reference you pointed out and I can say safely, that according to them only 13.5 percent failed in 2009. Here is the reference. My advise, study hard and pass the test, otherwise, good luck paying off your loans. http://www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/pdfs/adea_2010_jc_update.pdf
  12. Kim Schneider Monday - 28 / 02 / 2011 Reply
    Thank you all for the comments. We ask that you do not make ad hominen attacks but rather use this blog as a discussion forum. Furthermore, this blog is intended for dental students; if you have issue with this, please feel free to leave. Thank you for your cooperation, Kim Schneider, Communications Editor American Student Dental Association
  13. Khalid Haddadin Thursday - 01 / 12 / 2011 Reply
    Hello, I did my NBDE part I exam on July 2011 and got 85% .. But now I'm so anxious about part II because I'm going to di it in March 2012 on the new system Pass/Fail .. Is it going to be to hard, as I saw that there are questions with more than one correct answer .. Please tell me how will it be ? Thank you
  14. Harith Wednesday - 01 / 02 / 2012 Reply
    Dear khalid haddadin I put my exam date on april 18th i dunno how to reach ya to talk about things
    • Kim Schneider Wednesday - 01 / 02 / 2012
      Hi Harith, You need to contact the JCNDE. Their website is: http://www.ada.org/JCNDE.aspx. Thanks for reading!

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