Australian Dental Council
ADC Part 2 — Practical Examination
The final stage of the assessment process. Two days at the ADC's own examination centre, demonstrating that you can practise safely as a dentist in Australia.
The practical examination is simulation-based. Rather than treating real patients, you work on simulated anatomy and with standardised simulated patients, which allows multiple competencies to be assessed at once under conditions identical for every candidate. You are assessed against the Professional Competencies of the Newly Qualified Dentist.
Day one
Technical skills
Six tasks on typodonts mounted in manikin heads, prepared to resemble real clinical situations. You receive the task list at the start of the day, specifying the procedures, teeth and surfaces, plus a designated practice tooth. Breaks are taken as you need them in the candidate lounge, with a mandatory lunch break when the clinic closes. The day is designed to allow sufficient time for each task.
Day two
Clinical skills — ten-station OSCE
A station-based examination, each station in its own room with a defined time limit. Tasks may involve standardised simulated patients, video-based scenarios, procedures on manikins, or written exercises. Some stations have an assessor observing directly; others you complete alone for later assessment. This runs as a half-day session, morning or afternoon.
Confirm everything with the ADC. The Practical Examination Handbook for Dentists and the accompanying information package are the authoritative sources, and they include the technical task marking rubrics and a worked example OSCE scenario with its rubric. Read them. Nothing on this page is affiliated with or endorsed by the ADC.
Task lists published anywhere — including here — are examples only. The ADC states explicitly that candidates should expect variation.
Prepare for it
A word on shared "recalled" questions. Study groups sometimes circulate reconstructed exam content. Be careful: examination material is the ADC's copyright and candidates agree to confidentiality conditions. Relying on recalled tasks is also poor preparation, because the ADC varies them. Practise the competencies, not remembered task lists.