The most common question I get asked is “how do I study for the CDE™ exam?”

The exam is created by a group of health care professionals who know how to care for a variety of different patients in. Approach the exam in the same way. If you become a healthcare professional who knows how to care for a wide variety of patients then you will find the test easy.

The first step and most important step is to completely read and become very familiar with the 2018 Diabetes Canada clinical practice guidelines AND all the updates to the guidelines which can be downloaded in full here: https://guidelines.diabetes.ca/cpg

YOU MUST be very familiar with the 2018 Diabetes Canada clinical practice guidelines AND all the updates to the guidelines for the test.  It is the most important document to read! Most of my students have passed by becoming very familiar with the guidelines and doing my Practice Exams.  If you aren’t familiar with the guidelines then its unlikely that you will pass. Reading the key messages and summary will NOT be enough. You will, at the very least, need to read the entire guidelines once. Please see the Chapter Study Guide for details.

The Diabetes Canada website with its Health-Care Professional tools and People with Diabetes resources is the second most important resource. You can find them on the side bar of the main website here: http://guidelines.diabetes.ca/

The information from the clinical practice guidelines are summarized in the Key Messages, Health-Care Provider tools and People with Diabetes resources. Becoming familiar with them will make you a better health care provider in the area of diabetes.

The Key Messages section has several resources to give to patients as well as patient cases with multiple choice questions.

The Health Care provider interactive tools are great for testing your knowledge on various topics in diabetes. The videos are useful in highlighting what is important in each chapter. You can download the slides and look through them yourself

If you have studied the above resources well then it is likely you will pass. Putting in the hard work to study is the key to passing the exam.

The book called “Building Competency in Diabetes Education: The Essentials” is useful if you are new to the field of diabetes.  It can be purchased here: https://essentialsdiabetes.com/. However , it is not essential for the exam and your subscription lasts for a year. Sometimes students find different numbers in the Essentials and Clinical Practice guidelines. In all cases the Clinical Practice Guidelines is right and the Essentials and all other education sources is wrong for the exam.

The exam has 8 competencies (topics) which you will be tested on. Please see Appendix A of the CDECB manual at for details at:

https://www.cdecb.ca/wp-content/uploads/Appendix-A-Competency-Profile-With-Weightings.pdf

Note the weight of each topic.

Group 1-A: Competencies which are more critical / more frequently performed
(average number of questions per exam ~56)
Group 1-B: Competencies which are more critical / less frequently performed
(average number of questions per exam ~42)
Group 2-A: Competencies which are less critical / more frequently performed
(average number of questions per exam ~28)
Group 2-B: Competencies which are less critical / less frequently performed
(average number of questions per exam ~14)

Which adds up to 140 questions that are worth marks. Remember there are 25 pilot questions that are not worth marks. You will not know which questions are pilot questions. That comes to a total of 165 question in 3.5 hours.

You need to a good score in all of the competencies to pass. Please see the Competencies page for more details on each competency.

For the score needed to pass please see pg 13 of the CDECB Exam Manual which can be found here: https://www.cdecb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023-Examination-Handbook-1.pdf under Setting the Pass Score. Basically it means it changes from year to year.

If you can get 80% of my Practice Exams, I think you have a good chance of passing. If you can get 90%+, I think you have an excellent chance of passing. Remember that my packages come with a money back guarantee.

The following is VERY ROUGH estimate of the time needed to study for the exam.  I would estimate that it would take about 50-75 hours to study but this greatly depends on your reading speed, how well you memorize numbers and your prior experience with diabetes. My chapter to chapter study guide takes about 35 hours. The three pathophysiology lectures are about an hour each. The three practice exams take about 3 hours to write and 2 hours to review each. Obviously this cannot be done in three days before the exam. It depends on how much productive studying you can do per day. If you you are a slow reader, English is your second language, you have trouble with memorization or if you are new to diabetes/writing the exam for the first time then you may need to double or triple the time. If all of the above factors above apply to you then quadruple the studying time. Again a VERY ROUGH estimate.