LDS Part 1 pass rate: what is published, and what is not

There is no published LDS Part 1 pass rate. The Royal College of Surgeons of England does not release one, and the General Dental Council does not release one for the ORE either. If you have found a percentage quoted somewhere, it did not come from the examining body.

We are not going to quote you one. We cannot verify what happens in an examination hall, and neither can anyone else selling you a course. What we can do is set out what is actually published, and what the number you are looking for would and would not tell you.

What the examining bodies do publish

The Royal College publishes the things you need in order to sit: the regulations, the syllabus, the fee, the dates, the attempt limit and the application deadlines. The GDC does the same for the ORE. Both publish enough to plan a sitting around. Neither publishes outcome statistics by sitting.

That is not evasiveness. Examination outcomes move with the candidate group, and a body that published a figure would immediately be asked to explain a change that had nothing to do with the paper.

Why a single percentage would mislead you

Suppose a rate existed and it was, say, forty per cent. Three things would still be true, and each of them matters more than the number.

A pass rate is a fact about a group. You are one person, and what you control is your own preparation.

Where the numbers people quote come from

Most figures circulating in study groups trace back to one of three places: somebody counting the people they personally knew in one sitting, a provider quoting a number about its own students, or a figure repeated so often that the original source is gone. None of those is a pass rate.

Be particularly careful with the second. A course provider quoting a pass rate for its own candidates is describing a self-selected group who paid for preparation and chose to report the outcome. That is not the examination’s pass rate, and it is not yours.

The honest version: LDS Part 1 is passable, and it is not a formality

LDS Part 1 is two three-hour single-best-answer papers on consecutive days, and both must be passed in the same sitting. You cannot carry one paper forward. It is sat at home under remote proctoring, which removes the travel but adds a set of technical things to get right on the day.

You get four attempts. Confirm that limit with the Royal College before you book, because attempt limits are set by the examining body and can change.

The demand is breadth. The paper ranges across the whole undergraduate syllabus, and the common failure is not that a topic was too hard — it is that a topic was never revised at all.

What actually separates candidates who pass

From what candidates consistently report, four things do more work than anything else.

• Revising from questions, not from reading. Reading a chapter tells you it feels familiar. Answering questions on it tells you whether you can retrieve it under time pressure. The second is the thing being examined.
• Finding the weak subjects early. Most people spend their first fortnight on the subjects they enjoy. The paper does not care which subjects you enjoy. Get a breakdown by subject early enough that you can still act on it.
• One source, followed to the end. Candidates who collect four question banks, three books and two study groups generally finish none of them. Breadth of coverage matters; breadth of sources does not.
• Consistency over intensity. Twelve to fifteen hours a week for eight to twelve weeks beats three heroic weekends, because recall improves with spacing and not with cramming.

How long preparation actually takes

For somebody working full time, eight to twelve weeks at twelve to fifteen hours a week is a realistic plan. Less is possible if you have recently graduated and the material is still fresh. Considerably more is sensible if you have been away from academic dentistry for several years, which is the single most common reason people underestimate the job.

If you want the week-by-week version, our eight-week LDS Part 1 plan sets it out, and the exam format guide covers the papers, the kit and the deadline that catches people out.

If you have already failed a sitting

Failing once is not a verdict on whether you can pass. It is information, and it is better information than most candidates have before a first attempt, because you now know what the paper actually feels like.

The thing to resist is starting again from page one. Work out which subjects cost you the marks and rebuild from there: get a subject-level breakdown of your own performance, deal with the weakest three, and keep testing rather than re-reading.

Should you take the LDS or the ORE?

Both lead to the same GDC registration. The LDS is the cheaper route by a meaningful margin and is sat at home; the ORE is sat at a test centre and has its own booking pressure. We have no reason to push you either way — there is a course here for each. The comparison is set out with every figure sourced in ORE vs LDS Part 1, and the route itself in the LDS route.

Frequently asked

What is the LDS Part 1 pass rate? There is no published figure. Any percentage quoted online is an estimate, usually from a small group in one sitting, and it is not verifiable.

Why does the Royal College not publish one? The examining bodies publish regulations, fees, dates and attempt limits, but not sitting-by-sitting outcomes. A single figure would also move with the candidate group rather than with the paper.

Is LDS Part 1 harder than ORE Part 1? Neither is harder in the abstract. They test the same underlying knowledge in the same question format. The differences are practical: where you sit it, how many papers, and whether both must be passed together.

How many attempts do I get? Four. Confirm it with the Royal College before booking.

How long should I prepare? Eight to twelve weeks at twelve to fifteen hours a week is realistic alongside full-time work.