Pass My Boards is a genuine standalone NDEB AFK question bank — an app-first product of 2,900-plus exam-style MCQs organised by topic and difficulty, with image-based cases and referenced explanations. That makes it a good fit for candidates who want volume and mobility rather than a taught course. Its principal limitation for planning is transparency: on the pages checked it does not publish a price, an access period or a per-domain question breakdown, so you cannot confirm blueprint balance from the outside, and it offers no adaptive engine.
This is a narrow child audit. The exam-level reasoning on what any MCQ bank can and cannot train lives in the hub, what MCQ banks cannot prepare you for in NDEB AFK.
What Pass My Boards offers for NDEB AFK right now
Vendor-reported figures from passmyboards.com and its NDEB AFK app listing, last checked 20 July 2026. Confirm the live numbers, and especially the price and access terms, in-app before purchase.
| Attribute | Pass My Boards NDEB AFK (vendor-reported, 20 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Product type | Standalone question bank, app-first (iOS listing) with web access |
| Question count | 2,900+ exam-style MCQs (vendor claims "largest and most complete") |
| Organisation | By topic and by difficulty (Easy / Medium / Hard) |
| Explanations | "Expert-backed" answers with discussion and scholarly references |
| Image items | Image-based cases referenced (radiographs, lesions) — quantity not published |
| Extra features | Custom deck creation, keyword search, difficulty ranking, offline access, in-app community chat |
| Full mock exams | Not clearly specified as full two-part papers — verify |
| AI / adaptive engine | None stated |
| Price | Not published on the pages checked — verify in-app |
| Access period | Not published on the pages checked — verify in-app |
| Per-domain breakdown | Not published — cannot confirm blueprint balance externally |
| Components supported | AFK only |
The honest lead: this is a real, sizeable AFK bank, but two of the things you most need to plan a purchase — price and blueprint balance — are not disclosed on the public pages. Treat the current-state box as provisional until you confirm in-app.
The exam it is preparing you for
The AFK is 200 single-answer multiple-choice questions in two parts, two hours per part, four hours total, sat electronically at Prometric (booklet at select sites). A test-equated, re-scaled score of 75 or greater passes, and it is the first step of the NDEB Equivalency Process. Content is biomedical science and applied clinical dental science; three attempts are permitted, and the NDEB provides an official 100-question self-assessment. Where third-party pages claim a "150-question single session" or exact discipline percentages, defer to the NDEB protocol — those figures are not official, and the NDEB does not publish a precise public weighting.
Recording the live count and breaking it down
The headline is 2,900-plus items, which is ample volume for an MCQ exam of 200 questions. The number that actually matters, though, is the distribution across the blueprint, and Pass My Boards does not publish it. So do not trust the headline total; reconstruct the breakdown yourself in the first week.
| Blueprint area (illustrative) | Can you confirm depth from outside? | What to check in-app |
|---|---|---|
| Basic sciences (anatomy, physiology, biochemistry) | No | Count items in the topic filter |
| Microbiology / immunology / pathology | No | Item count and explanation depth |
| Pharmacology | No | Item count; currency of drug facts vs the SmPC/eMC |
| Operative / restorative and materials | No | Item count; application vs recall mix |
| Prosthodontics | No | Item count |
| Periodontology | No | Item count |
| Endodontics | No | Item count |
| Oral surgery / oral medicine | No | Item count |
| Oral radiology / image items | Partly (feature listed) | How many are true image reads |
| Orthodontics / paediatric dentistry | No | Item count — these are often thin |
| Ethics / Canadian context | No | Whether framing is Canadian |
Use the app's topic filter to log a rough count per discipline in your first sitting. If orthodontics or paediatric dentistry returns a handful of items while operative dentistry returns hundreds, you have found your supplement list before you have wasted a week.
Sample question style
Judge the items, not the marketing. On the evidence available, Pass My Boards offers difficulty-tiered items with referenced explanations and some image-based cases, which is the right shape. Verify in a free sample:
- Recall versus application. A good AFK bank mixes single-fact recall with short applied stems. If almost everything is one-line recall, it will over-prepare recognition and under-prepare reasoning.
- Stem length and option plausibility. AFK stems are typically concise. Check that distractors are plausible rather than obviously wrong, because implausible distractors inflate your score.
- Image and data interpretation. Confirm image items make you read the film, not match a caption.
- Management sequencing. Look for items that ask for the next step, not only the definition.
The difficulty ranking and referenced explanations are genuine strengths; the scholarly-reference habit is exactly what supports durable learning rather than rote recognition.
Jurisdiction and recency
Check a stratified sample — say five items each from pharmacology, oral medicine and operative dentistry — against current Canadian-facing guidance, and record the date you did it. Two questions matter: are the facts current (drug detail should reconcile with the SmPC/eMC), and is the framing Canadian rather than another country's convention? An international bank can be biologically correct yet misaligned on the standard of care the AFK expects. Note your review date so a future reader knows how fresh your check was; ours is 20 July 2026. One practical habit: keep a short log of any item where the app's answer and your Canadian-facing source disagree. A handful of disagreements is normal and easily corrected; a pattern of them, especially clustered in one discipline, is a signal that this bank was not assembled for the Canadian standard and that you should weight your trust toward official NDEB material for that area.
The format gap
Can a standard Q-bank prepare you for Canadian dental standards, radiographs and discipline-balanced coverage? Partly. Pass My Boards can drill recognition and some image reading, and its difficulty tiers help. What it cannot guarantee is balanced sampling — because you choose the topics — or cold radiograph fluency, or a full two-part, four-hour simulation if it does not assemble whole papers. Those gaps are inherent to the modality, not unique to this vendor; the hub article covers how to train them.
Duplication and contamination
With 2,900-plus items you will meet repeated concepts and near-duplicate stems. That is not inherently bad — spaced repetition of a concept is useful — but it inflates your percentage as you recognise items on the second pass. The contamination risk is that "bank completion" starts to mean "I remember this question" rather than "I know this topic." Guard against it by keeping a separate, unseen measurement set you never study from, and by watching whether your accuracy holds on genuinely new items.
Best-fit matrix
| Use case | Is Pass My Boards a strong fit? |
|---|---|
| Foundation building from weak basics | Partial — it is a bank, not a teacher; pair with taught material |
| First high-volume pass | Strong — volume, difficulty tiers, mobility |
| Second bank alongside a course | Strong — good source of extra unseen volume |
| Retake needing fresh items | Strong, if you have not already exhausted it |
| Final full-length simulation | Weak unless it assembles true two-part papers — verify |
Worked example: a seven-day loop for an international graduate
Pass My Boards does one job — high-volume, explained unseen items — and iatroX does another, independent measurement and spacing. No proprietary-algorithm claims are made.
| Day | Pass My Boards (job: volume + explained review) | iatroX (job: independent unseen measurement) |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 40 items in your two weakest topics; read every explanation | 20 unseen items on the same topics; log per-domain score |
| Tue | 40 items, mixed difficulty | 20 fresh items mixing today's and an older topic |
| Wed | Re-test yesterday's PMB misses | 20 unseen items; re-test Monday's iatroX misses |
| Thu | 40 image-based / oral-medicine items | 30 mixed unseen items at exam pace |
| Fri | 40 items in your strongest topic (maintenance) | No new items; review the week in the Socratic tutor |
| Sat | Custom deck of all flagged items | 40 unseen items across the blueprint; record the domain spread |
| Sun | Light review only | Re-test the week's misses; compare to last Sunday's unseen score |
Because iatroX items are unseen and never studied from, your Sunday figure is a clean signal — unlike your rising PassMyBoards percentage, which is partly recognition. That distinction is the whole point of why your Q-bank percentage is not your exam score.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue if your unseen accuracy is climbing and your in-app per-domain counts show reasonable balance.
- Supplement if the topic filter reveals thin disciplines (often orthodontics, paediatric dentistry, or true image items) — add a resource for those, and keep an independent measurement set.
- Switch only if a jurisdiction check shows repeated misalignment with Canadian standards, or if the bank turns out far smaller per-domain than the headline implies — measurable reasons, not novelty.
- Stop buying more question access once your unseen score has plateaued at target and new items no longer teach you anything; move to full two-part simulation.
Bottom line
Pass My Boards is a legitimate, sizeable AFK question bank with the right features — difficulty tiers, referenced explanations, image cases, offline access. For a first high-volume pass or as a second bank it is a strong option. The caveats are transparency and modality: verify price, access period and per-domain balance in-app, and add an independent unseen-measurement layer so bank completion never masquerades as readiness.
Frequently asked questions
Is Pass My Boards enough for NDEB AFK on its own? For a candidate with a solid knowledge base who mainly needs volume, it can carry most of the practice, because 2,900-plus explained, difficulty-tiered items is ample for a 200-question exam. It is less complete for a weak-foundation candidate who needs teaching, and for anyone it should be paired with an independent unseen set, because a single completed bank becomes a recognition test rather than a measure of readiness.
Which NDEB AFK component does Pass My Boards not reproduce well? It does not clearly reproduce a full two-part, four-hour simulation, and it does not guarantee discipline-balanced sampling, because you choose the topics. Cold radiograph reading may also be under-served relative to a dedicated image set. Verify how many items are genuine image reads and whether the app can assemble a complete 200-question paper before you rely on it for simulation.
How many Pass My Boards questions should I complete per day for NDEB AFK? Around 40–60 items a day in the final two months is a reasonable target for a bank of this size, but only if you read every explanation and re-test your misses the next day. Raw completion speed is a poor goal; a smaller number of items reviewed properly beats a large number rushed. Adjust down if you cannot review thoroughly, because unreviewed volume mostly trains recognition.
When should I stop using Pass My Boards and move to mixed mocks? Move to mixed, full-length conditions in the final three to four weeks, once your per-topic accuracy is solid and you notice you are re-recognising items rather than reasoning through them. If Pass My Boards does not assemble true two-part papers, use a resource that does — or the official self-assessment plus an unseen set — so your final rehearsals reproduce the real four-hour, two-part format.
How should I combine Pass My Boards with iatroX without duplicating practice? Assign non-overlapping jobs: Pass My Boards supplies high-volume, explained items you study from, while iatroX supplies unseen, timed items you only ever measure on and never revise from. That keeps your iatroX score a clean readiness signal and prevents the double-counting that happens when two banks share content. It is the two-Q-bank rule — a study bank and a separate measurement bank.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026. All Pass My Boards figures (the 2,900-plus count, features and the absence of published price and access terms) are vendor-reported from passmyboards.com and its app listing on that date and must be confirmed in-app; per-domain balance was not publicly disclosed and should be reconstructed using the app's topic filter. Dental facts are anchored to the NDEB protocol. Disclosure: iatroX operates a competing question bank; here it is confined to the independent unseen-measurement and spaced-retrieval role that Pass My Boards does not claim, with no proprietary-algorithm assertion. Corrections via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: NDEB — Assessment of Fundamental Knowledge and Exam Resources (ndeb-bned.ca); Pass My Boards dentistry and NDEB AFK app pages (passmyboards.com; apps.apple.com); iatroX comparison hub, blueprint-coverage matrix pillar and Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score.