NELDA
National Entry Level Dental Assistant
AMP + ICE + RHS
The entry credential. DANB caps it at three renewals, which tells you plainly what it is for: getting you onto the ladder, not keeping you there.
For Dental Assistants Preparing for DANB® Certification
Launching November 2026 — join the waitlist
Every DANB Exam.
One Engine. $29 a Month.
AccelaStudy® AI Dental covers all thirteen DANB component exams and all seven credential paths on one adaptive engine.
It drills the chairside half of the job and grades your dental math — the two things a practice-test bank has never been able to do.
The alternative is buying prep one exam at a time: single practice tests at $39, bundles at $85–$140, a prep course at $450 — and starting over at the next rung of the ladder.
$29/mo, cancel anytime · 7 credential paths · 13 component exams · Infection Control Fundamentals free
The engine
It Studies You While You Study
A practice-test bank hands every candidate the same six hundred questions in the same order.
This works out what you already have — and after a year chairside there is more of it than you think — then spends your evenings on the rest.
It learns you at the concept level
Not “you’re weak in radiography” — weak in vertical angulation and the elongation it causes. The picture updates after every question, every sequencing drill, every calculation you work.
It finds the real reason you missed it
A missed instrument-processing question is often not a processing problem. When the error traces back to something underneath it — what actually kills a spore, why a cassette is wrapped the way it is — that is what you get sent to fix.
It brings the missing foundation to you
When a gap traces back to material from another part of the corpus, a short plain-language refresher appears where you need it: under the topic that depends on it, or right after the answer that hinged on it. Written for your situation rather than pulled off a shelf.
It picks the next thing on purpose
Every question, drill and simulation is chosen because it teaches you the most in the least time. There is no fixed playlist, and no evening spent confirming that you can still name a spoon excavator.
It plans around the shift you actually work
Give Autopilot your exam date and the minutes a day you really have — which, after eight hours chairside, is not many. It builds the plan and quietly rebuilds it the week the plan collapses.
It tells you when you are ready
A running pass estimate with its confidence shown, on DANB’s own 100–900 scale with the pass line at 400. You find out you are short while there is still time to move the date.
The ladder
Seven Credentials.
One Subscription.
The DANB credentials are built out of shared component exams, so the ladder should compound.
Buying prep one exam at a time is what makes every rung start from zero.
CDA
Certified Dental Assistant
RHS + ICE + GC
The one most people mean by “certified.” Two of its three components are the two you already passed for NELDA.
COA
Certified Orthodontic Assistant
ICE + OA
For the orthodontic practice. Infection control carries straight over; Orthodontic Assisting is the one new exam.
CDIPC
Certified Dental Infection Prevention and Control
A single 100-question exam
For the assistant who has become the practice’s infection-control coordinator. Everything you learned for ICE is the foundation.
CPFDA
Certified Preventive Functions Dental Assistant
CP + SE + TF
Coronal polishing, sealants and topical fluoride.
CRFDA
Certified Restorative Functions Dental Assistant
IM + TMP + SE + RF
Impressions, temporaries and restorative functions — and Sealants, which you already have if you hold CPFDA.
DISIPC
Dental Industry Specialist in Infection Prevention and Control
A single 100-question exam
For the industry side of the same discipline — regulatory and occupational safety, disease transmission, protocols.
What you prove once, you keep. Radiation Health and Safety and Infection Control carry from NELDA into CDA; Infection Control carries into COA and CDIPC; Sealants carries from CPFDA into CRFDA. The engine credits what you have already shown it instead of re-teaching it.
The paths in fullSimulations
The Exam, in Its Real Shape
Fifty questions in forty minutes is a different exam from a hundred and forty in a hundred and five.
Every simulation runs at its own component’s real question count and real clock, and the full CDA sitting runs at 245 questions in 195 minutes.
Each component at its own length
From the 50-question, 40-minute Sealants exam to the 140-question, 105-minute Orthodontic Assisting exam. Pacing is a skill, and it is different for every one of them.
Readiness on DANB’s scale
Scores come back on the 100–900 scale with the pass line at 400. Your readiness readout uses the same scale, as an estimate with its confidence shown — never a fake score dressed up as a real one.
Remote-proctor mode
A mode that mirrors taking the exam from home, which is how most candidates now test. One exception is worth knowing about in advance: Orthodontic Assisting is delivered in person only.
Weighted to the published blueprint
Each component is built to the domain weights DANB publishes for it — so the half of General Chairside that is chairside dentistry gets half of your practice, rather than whatever a textbook chapter happened to run long on.
A different exam every time
Practice exams are composed fresh rather than replayed, so you cannot memorize your way to a score that will not survive test day.
Digital radiography, current
Radiation Health and Safety has been digital-only since 2022. A review book printed before that is teaching you film, and film is not on the exam.
Chairside and math
The Half of the Job a Question Bank Cannot Teach
Half of General Chairside is chairside dentistry, and forty-five percent of Restorative Functions is procedures.
Those are things you do in an order, with instruments, under a clock — and reading four answer choices about them is not the same as doing them.
Chairside drills
Sequence it, set it up, label it, spot the breach
- Put instrument processing, dental-dam placement, alginate mixing and a coronal-polishing sequence in the right order — and get told which step you moved, not just that you were wrong
- Build the tray for the procedure, then have it checked piece by piece
- Relabel the dentition, a tooth cross-section, head-and-neck landmarks, an instrument tray and a radiograph mount
- Work radiographic technique until elongation and foreshortening stop looking alike
- Read an operatory sequence and tag every infection-control or radiation-safety breach in it, scored by how serious each one is
- Look up the governing CDC guideline or OSHA standard in a reference browser, the way you would have to on the floor
Dental math
Graded, worked through, and checked by computation
- Exposure settings and dose — the arithmetic behind why a change to one factor is not a free change
- Anesthetic maximums, worked to the number rather than remembered as a rule of thumb
- Fluoride and disinfectant dilutions, including the ones that are easy to get an order of magnitude wrong
- Sterilization parameters — time, temperature and pressure, and what happens when one of them moves
- Every step of the solution shown, so you can see where yours diverged instead of just seeing a red mark
- Every solution verified by computation before it reaches you, so the answer key is never the thing that is wrong
Pricing
One Subscription.
Every Exam.
No per-exam purchase.
No bundle that covers three of the thirteen.
No premium tier holding back the drills you came for.
$29/mo
Month to month. Pause or cancel in one click.
$23/mo
Billed annually at $276 — save $72.
- All seven credential paths and all thirteen component exams
- Chairside sequencing, tray setups, relabeling and technique drills
- Graded dental math with computation-verified solutions
- Exam-shape simulations, including the full 245-question CDA sitting
- Infection Control Fundamentals free — with or without a subscription
Subscriptions open at launch in November 2026. Nothing is charged before then.
FreeNo subscription, no credit card
Dental Infection Control Fundamentals, on the house
Instrument processing, environmental asepsis, personal protective equipment and exposure control — aligned to the CDC’s dental infection-control guidelines and OSHA’s bloodborne pathogens standard. Free, permanently, on the same adaptive engine as every paid course. It is the ground floor under Infection Control, CDIPC and DISIPC, and it is a fair way to find out whether this thing works before it costs you anything. It is study material, not continuing-education credit.
About the free courseWhy you can trust this
49 Patent Filings
1158 claims covering the adaptive engine.
Zero Tracking
No tracking cookies. No third-party analytics. Your work stays yours.
Bootstrapped Since 2008
Renkara Media Group — independent, no VC strings.
Accessible by Design
Frequently Asked Questions
Which credential should I go for?
If you are new, NELDA is the on-ramp and CDA is where most people are headed — and two of CDA’s three components are the two you would already have passed. If you work in an orthodontic practice, COA. If you have become the person who owns infection control, CDIPC. You do not have to decide now: every path is in the same subscription, so changing your mind costs you nothing but the decision.
Am I eligible to sit for these exams?
DANB sets eligibility, not us. Broadly there are two ways in — graduating from an accredited dental assisting program, or documented on-the-job work experience — and DANB also requires current CPR or BLS certification, which we do not provide. Check DANB’s own pathway pages for the version that applies to you before you pay an exam fee.
Do I have to buy each exam’s prep separately?
No, and that is most of the point. Prep is usually sold one exam at a time — a single practice test at $39, a three-exam bundle at $85, a prep course at $450. One $29/mo subscription covers all thirteen component exams and all seven credential paths.
Is this continuing-education credit?
No. Everything here is study material for the certification exams. Continuing-education credit has to come from a provider recognized for it, and we are not one.
Can I cancel?
Any time, in one click. A prep window is usually eight to twelve weeks — pay for the months you study, stop when you have tested.
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