Good idea to read through them? The sample test I took(from Barrons) had dental articles that I had trouble reading. I got a hold of two magazines JADA and Dentistry Today courtesy of the office that I was shadowing.

Is it possible to subscribe to JADA without being a dentist or member of ADA?? I am interested in getting this on a regular basis in case the dental office doesn't have a copy to spare.

Dear Blank,

I don't think that this would be the best approach. Journal subscriptions and ADA membership are well beyond a student budget, and there are better ways to gain a broad exposure to dental topics while acquiring the valuable experience in reading scientific literature that you are seeking. To recommend a few
alternatives (all free):

(1) Check out your school's library. If you are at a large univ, particularly one w/ health affairs programs, you will find many of the literary resources that you require, either online and accessible by route of the library's catalog, or in print. You may also investigate the offerings of a local hospital library - large teaching hospitals where there are a lot of med students/ residents, esp, should prove fruitful. Or still better, try to have a close acquaintance in a grad program in the biomed sciences that will agree to lending you his password to his institution's own password-protected digital library (highly preferred).

(2) Public access to full-text resources is available via pubmed.com. See "Journals Database" at the left-hand margin.

(3) To give you some direction toward pertinent dental publications, I have provided a link to the current holdings of a dental library (University of Rochester). http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/dentistry/Bibby/journals.html
In my opinion, JADA, JDR, and Journal of Dentistry are good places to begin because these pubs tend to address more general issues and are more accessible. Also, dental research is published all over the basic sci and medical lit. I like JBC, J Cell Biochem, Cell, Bone, J Bone Miner Res, J Biomech, and Cell Molecular Biol. Science and Nature mags are always a good time despite lack of obvious dental relevance.

(4) Rather than browse the dental lit, you may find it more satisfying to research specific dental topics that are of interest to you. Try searching medline or pubmed databases.

(5) ada.org for dental news, policy, lawsuits, issues, etc.

I hope that you find what you're looking for. Good luck!

Sam Spade

Thanks. I just wanted to know a little bit more about the dental journals. I just happened to get it secondhand.

i think it is a good idea to read anything you can get your hands on.

I don't know about everyone, but for the reading comp of my DAT I did not have any journal article-types of reading. One of the articles was even not related to science (it was economics). I don't think reading journal articles will help because those articles are much more difficult than the ones you will see in the DAT and it will give you much more stress than you really need.

I think the best preparation materials for reading comprehension would just be your college biology (or any other science subject) book. Just read the more difficult molecular stuff like tyrosine kinases and signalling pathways in cells. You want to get into the habit of reading in such a way that minimizes your need to refer back to the passage to answer a question. What I found was that your time is best invested in readng the passage thoroughly. You have 20 minutes per passage, and I spent as much as 14 minutes just reading the passage and understanding it. Once you accomplish that, you can easily answer the roughly 17 questions pertaining to that passage in the 6 minutes remaining.

That strategy worked for me, and I think it is the best strategy based on what I have heard from others.