DANB study guide plans and exam outlines

What’s in each DANB study guide plan?

• RHS: the plan uses the DALE Foundation’s RHS Exam Prep Bundle and Modern Dental Assisting, 13th edition.
• ICE: the plan uses DALE’s ICE Review course and ICE Practice Test, with Modern Dental Assisting, 13th edition.
• GC: three versions. The 6-week plan makes reading optional, the 10-week plan uses Essentials of Dental Assisting and the 12-week plan uses Modern Dental Assisting. All three use DALE’s GC Practice Test and its Chairside Assisting 101 and 102 courses.

Each plan starts with one content area at a time and ends with a session that reviews everything together. You can opt in to weekly reminders.

DANB says that in a small study, candidates who used the RHS plan passed at a higher rate than those who didn’t, and that using a plan doesn’t guarantee a pass. You can use other materials, as long as they cover the outline.

Textbooks DANB’s exam committees use

Each outline ends with the references its committee used to write the exam. DANB says no one book will cover everything and that the list isn’t an endorsement. For RHS:

• Bird and Robinson, Modern Dental Assisting, 14th edition, 2024
• Ianucci and Howerton, Dental Radiography, 6th edition, 2022
• Thomson and Johnson, Essentials of Dental Radiography for Dental Assistants and Hygienists, 10th edition, 2017
• Miller, Infection Control and Management of Hazardous Materials for the Dental Team, 7th edition, 2023

The GC list adds Essentials of Dental Assisting, Dental Materials: Clinical Applications for Dental Assistants and Dental Hygienists, Dental Management of the Medically Compromised Patient and Dental Assisting: A Comprehensive Approach.

Older editions are fine for study if they came out within the past 5 years for RHS and ICE, or the past 7 years for GC. For Spanish-language candidates, DANB adds a Spanish and English vocabulary list to the exam outline.