Still, a preliminary review of the exam does yield some nuggets worth taking note of, at least for those interested in this CBE or in the CBE in general.   Without speculating on the pass rate, one can see that this exam had more in common with the October 2010 exam than with the April 2011 exam.  There appeared to be, as one candidate put it, a certain “looseness” in the way questions were grouped, meaning that there seemed to be less exactness in question selection and/or placement.

In the Classification Section, for example, Questions 24 and 34 could be most effectively answered by consulting not the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) (as is typically the case for this section), but rather the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  Similarly, Questions 11 and 12, found in the Entry Section, might in other exams be placed in the Classification Section or perhaps in a Trade Agreements section as they were squarely answered by the HTS rather than the CFR.  The change in title of the last section from “General” to “Miscellaneous” seems to reinforce this “mixed bag” character of the exam.

There was definite overlap, however, with April 2011 in certain topic areas such as a focus on the Ultimate Consignee directive (CBP Directive 3550-079).   Along with a section, for the first time ever, entirely devoted to the Power of Attorney, this focus on the fundamental question of who can serve as the principal actors in the entry transaction reflects an apparent concern at CBP (US Customs & Border Protection) that the trade community has not engaged in sufficiently careful or rigorous application of existing rules and standards in screening importers of record, consignees and others making entry or attempting to import goods.

Along the same lines, one senses that the transition that the exam process has undergone in the last few years, from the change in eligibility requirements to the relatively varied approach in exam construction, may be linked not only to changes in regulatory approach to customs transactions, but also to a debate on what the role of a licensed customs broker should be in today’s trade community.   For more information on this changing role, you can go to this page on CBP’s website.

Should a licensed Customs Broker be someone who is competent in navigating and understanding the rules and regulations?  Or should she also be required to know how the rules operate in practice, i.e. in the context of an actual customs transaction that affects cargo?  It might be obvious that both skill sets are needed, but the question of how to shape license requirements (including exam content) is an extremely tricky one, almost as tricky (if not more) as trying to figure out (with not much information) who would make a good broker and who would not.

Following are some highlights, but you should read the Notice yourself, to verify:

• Date of the Exam: Monday, October 3, 2011
• Deadline for Exam Application (CBP must RECEIVE the application by this  date): Friday, September 2, 2011 (close of business)
• Place of Filing Exam Application: CBP Port at which you intend to take the exam
• Application Fee: $200
• Date by which you can Withdraw from the Exam and still receive a full refund: Wednesday, September 28, 2011

IMPORTANT–Versions of the principal texts CBP used to write the October 2011 exam:

• Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) 2011
• 19 CFR 1-199 revised as of April 2011

One relatively good source for guidance on obtaining the legal texts is Boskage Publications (which apparently is part of Thomson Reuters).  It IS fairly risky to go into the exam with older versions that what is listed in the Notice, although some have been known to do it.

Finally, for more comprehensive guidance on the supplies and texts you will need for preparation and the exam itself, you can check this page.



Focused on the experienced, knowledgeable candidate, the webinars will provide brief topical overviews of such core topics as Entry, Classification, Valuation, Broker Compliance and FTAs; however, the primary focus and effort will be on unpacking challenging concepts and regulatory language through illustrative CBE questions and other techniques.  Participants will be required to complete on-line exercises in preparation for the webinars.

The webinar program is aimed at supporting those exam candidates who have had experience taking the CBE in the past.  It is obviously not intended as and CANNOT SUBSTITUTE FOR the intensive, independent preparation, hard work and study that will be necessary for success on the October CBE.  A strong assumption will be made that participants are engaged in such independent preparation.   Seating is limited and preference will be given to former SJC students.

Anyone interested in participating in the webinar program or learning more about the schedule and cost of the program should contact SJC at (650) 616 – 4405.

For those who are unable to attend live classes, there are obviously many tools that one can use to prepare for the exam.  A simple internet search using terms such as “customs broker exam” will yield plenty of options.  Every candidate has her own specific learning style, so no one study aid or set of aids will be effective for everyone.  The following are, nonetheless, typically helpful:

Official CBP Exam Archive: The single most important and helpful method of preparation is to take previously given exams UNDER EXAM CONDITIONS.  It is impossible to overstate the importance of practicing with timed, official, 80-question exams.  Many successful candidates report that they practiced taking all 25+ exams available in the CBP archive before the exam, and some report taking several exams multiple times.

Categorized Question Database: To develop a sense of the parameters of a particular topic area from the examiner’s perspective, it is helpful to drill with questions in that area.  A good way to do this is to use an on-line question database.  SJC offers a free one for CFR questions here.

Flashcards: Memorization is an unavoidable requirement for success on the exam since the process of thinking through, looking up, and choosing an answer typically requires more than the 3 minute allocation (on average) provided for each question.  You will have to knock out up to 20-40 questions by knowing certain facts (and concepts) by memory.  Flashcards (especially those that you make yourself) can be very helpful in developing this ability.

Topic guides: Certain topics, issues, concepts require clarification beyond what may be found in the regulations, i.e. Valuation, Classification, Trade Agreements, and others.  There are good overviews available both from commercial vendors and free, on the internet.  Logistics Training Systems has a good, fairly comprehensive manual.  CBP.gov has a tremendous amount of material, not just in its ICP (Informed Compliance Publications) library, but also in various nooks and crannies, especially within the Trade area of the website.

SJC will also offer long-distance training aimed at providing cost-effective instruction to re-take candidates who have questions on specific issues or problems and who wish to participate in weekly conference calls that cover certain topics according to a fixed schedule.  The aim of these sessions will be to provide substantive assistance in understanding the more challenging problems, questions and concepts that may arise on the exam.

Check back here for SJC offerings!

The April 2011 CBE is over, having taken place on April 4, and exam candidates across the country are wondering how they did, perhaps consulting others and even developing “preliminary” answer keys.  Joining them, exam candidates in San Francisco include those that “succeeded” and those that did not, according to these preliminary reviews (keeping in mind, of course, that the official CBP answer key will not be posted for a few weeks).

Among those is one person who has taken the exam several times (3+) and who likely did not pass again this time around.  Yet, upon realizing this, he called SJC and with unmistakable pride and happiness in his voice, declared “I only missed by 2!”  Success, he apparently felt, was something other than passing.  Success, under his definition, was improving substantially from his previous performances. (His best previous attempt was ~40 incorrect.)

Which is a nice reminder as to what the exam should represent, namely a reflection of one’s competence in U.S. customs procedures, law, and principles.  Of course the bottom line is passing and there are those who would dismiss this candidate’s response as soft or a form of self comforting, especially in light of his several previous attempts.

But, improving one’s score on the CBE from 50% to 72.5% is undeniably meaningful.  One could argue that it does demonstrate a break through in understanding and knowledge that we would hope all licensed U.S. customs brokers experience.  (Unfortunately, we can’t be born knowing 19 CFR.)  Moreover, if the 75% passing score established by CBP is to be meaningful, then 72.5% is within range of “legal competence”.

It is not hard to imagine our happy candidate not only reaching that regulatory standard but going on to becoming a superb professional in the industry.  That has as much to do with his learning about himself as it does with “success” on the exam.

Yet, if you can remain both calm and focused, you will have the maximum best chance of both effective preparation and effective performance on April 4.  Taking a look at your study, work and personal schedule can help since if you’ve been planning well, you’ll likely see that you’ve blocked off increasingly more time to study.  And even if you haven’t planned, you still have time to do so now.

In the last month, you should be taking as many practice exams as you can stomach under timed conditions (along  with thorough review and highlighting) and drill in those topics, parts and regulations that you’ve noted as particularly unfamiliar or confusing.   See below for a convenient and free way to drill by CFR Part.

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Original post: September 3, 2010:

With time before exam day short and tons of stuff still left to do on your “to-study” list, you may get some benefit from a free 19 CFR On-line Question Drill site that has been created right here on this site. It is not exactly sophisticated, but if you want to focus on a particular CFR part and test your recall and/or look-up skills, the drills can come in handy. Take a look–can’t hurt.

Customs & Border Protection has REVISED its Notice of Examination for the April 2011 Customs Broker License Exam (CBE) (click here). Among the revisions, other than the typo corrections, one highlight is the DELETION from the list of materials used to create the exam of several Directives and the ADDITION of a new Directive (3530-002A, Right to Make Entry).  The deleted directives include the Bond Guidelines, Entry Summary Rejection Policy, 5106 Instructions, Census Warning guidelines and Remote Location Filing (RLF) requirements.  CATAIR materials apparently remain required.

Another revision worth noting is that the required edition of the CBP Regulations (19 CFR 1 – 199) has changed from April 2009 to April 2010.  In other words, you should have the regulations updated as of April 2010.  For those who have obtained the loose leaf version of the regulations updated as of September 30, 2009 (sometimes called the “base manual”), you will need to INSERT the first TWO PACKETS of updates that should have arrived either with you initial order of afterward (since the base manual generally comes with a subscription to the updates).  Note that you should insert the first set of updates first, then the second.  This will bring your regulations up to date as of April 2010.

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SOME OF THE BELOW HAS BEEN UPDATED (SEE ABOVE)

The April 2011 Customs Broker License Examination (CBE) has been officially announced (click here).  Among the first things to do (other than print the Notice for safekeeping of course) is to highlight, while reading the entire document carefully, the following items:

1. Actual day of the examination (Monday, April 4)
2. Instructions for applying to take the exam (CBP application form, application fee, mailing address, etc.)
3. Deadline for applying for the exam (Friday, March 4)
4. Materials used to create the exam
5. New eligibility requirements–you must be a U.S. citizen, non-federal employee, of age 18 or older

Remember one thing about CBP deadlines and time cut-offs: THEY ARE NON-NEGOTIABLE.  (Ask any number of exam candidates who, having studied for several months, showed up 30 seconds after the exam room doors closed.)

Materials for the April 2011 exam

According to the Notice, the following versions of the legal texts will be used for the exam:

• CBP Regulations (19 CFR 1 – 199): April 2009*
• Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States: 2010

*The Government Printing Office (GPO) does not list the April 2009 version of the 19 CFR 1-199 other than in microfiche form.  They do have the bound version (in two volumes) of the April 2010 edition AND the loose leaf edition updated as of September 2009.  This MAY, therefore, be a typo in the Notice–there are a couple others, too.  At this point, if you’re unsure which edition to get, you might wish to call CBP to double check.  However, it seems reasonable to conclude that CBP would not rely on materials that are not publicly available and therefore either the April 2010 bound version of the regulations OR the September 2009 loose leaf version would be acceptable.  (This is not intended to be taken as absolute certainty–for that you need to check with CBP.)

In any case, the relatively late posting of the Notice may require you to request expedited delivery of these texts if you do not already have them on hand.  (Last year the Notice was posted in the first week of January for the April exam!)  If so, when ordering from the GPO Office, do NOT order on-line.  Instead call the customer service line and order through a sales person.  MAKE SURE THAT YOU ORDER THE CORRECT VERSIONS, and if you are going to use a catalog rack to manage your materials, make sure to order the loose leaf versions.

Again, when ordering, telephone the GPO office at the following telephone number and ask them BEFORE YOU PLACE THE ORDER whether it is possible to get Fedex ground or other expedited delivery service for your order: 1-866-512-1800 .  If you do not expedite it, the delivery could literally take 6 weeks or more to arrive.

Loose leaf version of the CBP Regulations

Also, if you do order the loose leaf version, you should get a subscription service which will also provide you with additional update packets for your “base manual”.  As it is still somewhat unclear as to how far you should update your base manual, one might reasonably speculate that because the April 2010 bound version of the regulations is now available, you should update the loose leaf version up to that point.  REMEMBER: When updating, you do not simply go to the April 2010 packet and insert it.  You start with the first update packet and then insert each packet (taking out outdated pages) until you’ve completed the packet that has pages with April 2010 listed in the bottom right-hand corner.

Directives & CATAIR

The Notice also lists, toward the bottom, several CBP documents that may be tested on the exam.  You should follow the links posted there (EXCEPT THE LINK TO THE CATAIR) and print out a copy of each of the listed documents.  For the CATAIR documents, follow the link, but do NOT print out the entire CATAIR!!  Once you get to the CATAIR page, click the link to the CATAIR Appendices.  Then, using the Notice as a check list, ONLY PRINT OUT THE APPENDICES listed on the Notice.  (Otherwise, you join many past candidates who have approximately 2000 pages of unnecessary material.)

For more information concerning the exam materials, you can check this page.

There are many holes in this assertion, not least of which is that the pass rate does not reflect the objective difficulty of an exam.  Don’t you think CBP would maintain a relatively consistent pass rate if it could somehow calibrate (even within a range of a 10 percentage points) the difficulty of an exam by adjusting its content?  Their problem–as demonstrated by the EKG-like graph of historic pass rates–is that an exam that is “easy” for one group of examinees is “difficult” for another and vice versa.  The difficulty level of an exam is as variable as the ways in which individual examinees have prepared for it.

But, let’s put this another way. Many who passed the October 2010 CBE were re-takers, i.e. folks who had sometime in the past prepared for and taken the CBE at least once.  Assume that the October exam was “easier” than the exam they had previously taken; now try to assume that they prepared less for the October exam.  That’s right, you can’t make such an assumption.  In fact, if anything, you have to make the EXACT OPPOSITE assumption, i.e. that they prepared MORE, not less for the exam based on their previous experience.

In other words, re-takers who passed the October 2010 exam–and, for that matter, any re-taker who passes their next exam–are highly unlikely to benefit from an exam that is “less challenging” even if such an exam could be objectively identified.  This is why SJC is a big fan of re-takers (as has been noted in this blog elsewhere).  By definition, a re-taker is someone who, when she passes, deserves to pass because she has pushed herself to a position that is significantly better than her previous position, as far as knowing and understanding the regulations and tariff provisions.

Re-takers (sincere ones, at least) don’t need a “hard” exam to prove their credibility.  Unlike some who get by the first time and never open their books again, these folks have read their materials multiple times and practiced their scenarios a lot, because, as they themselves know so well, they have to.

Winners

To determine who benefits from the new requirements, one has to presume that preventing non-citizens from taking the exam benefits certain individuals or groups, but in this case, it is somewhat difficult to identify such persons.  One might argue that by preventing non-citizens from taking the exam, U.S. citizens would have a higher likelihood of passing, but this would necessitate that the exam be graded on a “curve”, i.e. that the same percentage of examinees would pass for each exam.  And this is not the case; the exam is graded on an absolute scale so that anyone who achieves a score of 75% or above passes.  Whether there are fewer or more examinees for a particular test does not affect an individual’s chances of passing.

Perhaps preventing non-citizens from taking the exam would reduce competition for U.S. citizens who obtain a license.  But, this is also impossible since U.S. citizenship has been a long standing requirement in order to apply for a license.  In other words, the number of license holders who are citizens will not change by requiring that examinees be citizens.

Similarly, an argument, which has been hinted at, that by requiring citizenship for taking the exam would enhance or solidify security benefits of the citizenship requirement for the license does not seem persuasive.  How does requiring U.S. citizenship to take an exam enhance security?

It may be that there is an administrative burden that can be relieved by reducing the number of non-citizen examinees.  But, because there is a $200 fee per examinee, one might argue that additional burden is or could be offset by the revenue generated by the exam fee. Put another way, if there were a large number of non-citizens that take the exam–and it is not clear that one could come up with this statistic–then by eliminating the burden of administering those exams, one also eliminates the revenue presumably used to pay for administering those exams.  There is no net gain.

In sum, it is somewhat difficult to discern any obvious benefits from the new citizenship requirement for taking the exam, and therefore it is doubtful that there will be any group or individual that can be considered a clear “winner” from this change.

Losers

Losers appear to be more readily identifiable.  First, for green card holders–permanent residents with the legal right to hold U.S. jobs–could not demonstrate their competence in U.S. customs regulations that others, by virtue of their U.S. citizenship, could.  It has been argued that there are other means by which a green card holder could demonstrate her competence that did not involve taking the license exam.  But, it has never been argued that passing the exam does not confer a valuable demonstration of competence in U.S. customs regulations.

Indeed, 19 CFR 111.13(a) states clearly that the exam is designed to evaluate whether an individual has sufficient knowledge of customs laws, regulations, procedures, etc. so as to be able to render valuable service to importers and exporters.   Passing such an evaluation or examination then demonstrates such sufficient knowledge under U.S. law, and thus there is a concrete and unequivocal standard that can only be met by passing the exam.  Because it is thus so directly and necessarily supported by U.S. law, this standard cannot be attained through other means.

Overall, it appears that this particular change to the regulations, while perhaps not having a major impact on the numbers of persons sitting for the U.S. customs broker license exam, would tend to discourage rather than encourage the study of U.S. customs regulations.  That can’t be good.

SJC will begin its Early Start course with an introductory session on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. This session will be open to all who are interested in taking the CBE either in April or October 2011. Early Start is designed for those who have never taken the CBE and/or who have relatively less experience in customs brokerage or customs related industry and is intended to serve as a rigorous introduction to classification under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) for purposes of taking the CBE.

If you are new to classification and intend to take the exam next April, you may wish to consider getting an early start. The Classification Section on the CBE is typically worth 20-25% of the exam score. For the last two exams, it was closer to 30%. More important, learning how to classify and understanding the HTS does not lend itself to last minute comprehension.

If you are interested in attending the November 2 session, please send an email with your name, telephone number and city of residence to info at secondjune dot com or call (650) 616 – 4405, leaving the same information as well as your email address. Again, the first session is open to all and is free of charge. However, an RSVP is required because of building security considerations.