Building on Previous Preparation and Experience
June 14th, 2010
It may be fairly obvious that one should prepare for taking the Customs Broker License Exam a second or third time DIFFERENTLY from how one prepared a previous time. To some extent, the difference in approach may be specific or personal to an individual’s own circumstances. But, if one had to make a general list of suggestions, the following may or may not qualify for that list:
1) Leverage your previous actual “day-of” experience to shape your next preparation–Again, obvious are things such as topic areas that need to be covered more thoroughly, but you should also pay attention to details such as how early to get to the exam site, where to sit, time management, transferring answers from the exam booklet to the scantron, dealing with tough sections, and so on. Recall the mental and test-taking errors that you made and incorporate methods of reducing or avoiding those types of errors into your preparation and practice for the next attempt.
2) Practice with more actual CBE questions–If you studied hard for the previous attempt, you will most likely be fairly prepared to take any exam as far as being able to recognize the topics or issues raised in questions. Use questions to review topics, drill with several questions in the same topic area, and practice test-taking techniques (circling key words, wrong answer choice elimination, and time management) by taking old exams.
3) Expand highlighting–Even if you feel as though you highlighted well and have plenty of notes from your previous attempt, continue to find opportunities to highlight parts of your regulations, tariff schedule, and directives. If you did NOT highlight well or study your texts and materials sufficiently last time, now is the time to do so. (SJC is persuaded that the exam can NOT be passed without basic studying: reading, highlighting and taking notes.)
Again, the serious and committed exam candidate WILL succeed eventually on the exam and will take a pro-active approach in making adjustments in preparation for the next attempt. SJC is happy to provide support as necessary and wishes you smooth sailing!