The Overseas Registration Examination Part 1 is the written knowledge assessment that internationally qualified dentists must pass to register with the General Dental Council and practise in the United Kingdom. The exam tests whether your dental knowledge meets the standard expected of a UK dental school graduate — not a specialist, but a safe and competent general dental practitioner within the UK regulatory framework.
ORE Part 1 capacity is expanding significantly. The GDC is scaling from roughly 600 places per year to a planned 4,200 by 2028 in response to the UK dentist shortage. This means more candidates will sit the exam each year, but competition for preparation resources remains intense because very few dedicated digital question banks exist for this exam.
Format
ORE Part 1 consists of 150 SBA questions delivered across two papers in a single day, totalling approximately three hours. Questions span all domains of dental practice — oral medicine, oral surgery, oral pathology, periodontology, restorative dentistry, endodontics, prosthodontics, orthodontics, paediatric dentistry, pharmacology, human disease management, and dental public health.
The exam sits three times per year — typically January, May, and September.
The UK alignment challenge
The single biggest difficulty for internationally trained dentists is not the clinical knowledge itself but the UK-specific framing. Drug names follow rINN conventions (Amoxicillin, Metronidazole, Lidocaine, Articaine). Doses must match the BNF. Management pathways follow NICE dental guidelines and SDCEP (Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme) recommendations. Medical emergency management in the dental practice follows the Resuscitation Council UK framework. Legal and ethical scenarios follow GDC Standards for the Dental Team.
If you trained outside the UK, you may know the clinical science perfectly but still answer incorrectly because the management algorithm you learned differs from the UK standard. This is the gap that focused preparation must close.
Topic weighting
Oral medicine and oral pathology together account for roughly 12 to 15 per cent of questions, covering mucosal lesions, potentially malignant disorders, salivary gland pathology, and TMJ dysfunction. Oral surgery accounts for 10 to 12 per cent, including extraction complications, dental trauma management, and impacted teeth. Periodontology accounts for 8 to 10 per cent, covering the 2018 classification, non-surgical and surgical management, and systemic links.
Restorative dentistry and prosthodontics combined account for 12 to 15 per cent, covering fixed and removable prosthetics, implant principles, and occlusion. Endodontics accounts for 8 per cent. Paediatric dentistry accounts for 8 per cent, including dental development, trauma in the primary dentition, and behaviour management. Orthodontics accounts for 6 per cent.
Pharmacology and medical emergencies together account for 10 to 12 per cent — local anaesthetic pharmacology, analgesic and antibiotic prescribing, drug interactions, and managing anaphylaxis, MI, syncope, and adrenal crisis in the dental chair. Human disease and its dental management implications (anticoagulant patients, diabetes, bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis, immunosuppression) account for a further 10 per cent.
The remaining questions cover radiology, dental materials, ethics, professionalism, and dental public health.
Revision strategy
Start four months before your sitting. The first month should focus on identifying UK-specific knowledge gaps — work through a question bank and note every question where the correct answer differs from what you would have chosen based on your home-country training. These gaps are your priority.
The second and third months should combine systematic question bank practice with targeted reading of NICE dental guidelines, SDCEP guidance, the BNF dental formulary, FGDP(UK) guidelines, and GDC Standards. Pay particular attention to medical emergency management in dental practice — the Resuscitation Council UK framework is specific and frequently tested.
The final month should be dedicated to timed mock exams and focused revision of weak areas.
Revision resources
Very few dedicated ORE Part 1 question banks exist. Most candidates historically relied on general dental textbooks (Cawson's, Scully's) supplemented by past question recall.
iatroX offers a dedicated ORE Part 1 question bank with over 1,500 questions aligned to the GDC assessment syllabus and UK dental guidelines. Questions cover all domains including UK-specific pharmacology (BNF dental formulary), NICE and SDCEP management pathways, GDC professional standards, and medical emergency protocols. The adaptive algorithm identifies your weakest areas — whether that is UK prescribing conventions, periodontology classification, or oral pathology — and targets them. Mock exams simulate the real format. The mobile app supports revision around clinical commitments.
All included at £29 per month or £99 per year — the same subscription covers MFDS Part 1 and every other exam on the platform.
The opportunity
ORE Part 1 has historically had pass rates between 50 and 78 per cent depending on the sitting. With the GDC expanding capacity to 4,200 places by 2028, the candidate pool is growing rapidly but the pass standard remains fixed. Structured preparation with a UK-aligned question bank is the single most effective way to close the knowledge gap between your home-country training and UK dental practice standards.