The October 2024 Customs Broker Exam in review: Here’s what I learned and what I plan to do differently

This round’s exam was doozy, and I came fairly close but, alas, no cigar.

Here are my thoughts, insights and advice on the most recent exam.

October 2024 CBLE

How I prepared

For the most part, I stuck to my guns and attempted one full past exam every week spread over Saturday and Sunday mornings (1.5 to 2  hours each day) and reviewed my mistakes and notes every Tuesday and Thursday during lunch break.

In addition, every Tuesday for one hour I joined my company-sponsored team sessions where we broke down, examined and analyzed individual pesky questions.

Overall, since I’ve been at this for a while, I was familiar with all the study materials including the 19 Code of Federal Regulations, Harmonized Tariff Schedule as well as additional Customs and Border Protection (CBP) materials and other handouts.

Having your materials tabbed, highlighted, and properly organized in folders is half the battle. 

The other part is getting a good idea of where information can be looked up quickly and efficiently is the key to the game.

You can expect to spend over 100 hours of study time devoted to taking the exam.

That will probably mean most of your weekends and some nights will be channeled to studies for the next 4-5 months.

Your social life will definitely be affected, and a lot of your major life projects will have to wait.

Don’t plan on taking that two-week vacation, starting that house remodel, or starting a new job.

What makes it even more difficult, if you are like me, decades removed from college and have a family.

Juggling family and career are already time consuming, so you will have to have a supportive partner to carve our personal study time.

My dedicated study sessions include weekends and a couple of times during the work week which was all I could devote. 

What was the exam like

Overall, my initial impressions of the October exam was that it was straightforward and passeable. 

For most questions, I didn’t feel I was in the dark or I believe CBP was being overly tricky and unreasonable.

I was confident for the duration of the exam and right afterwards, telling family and friends that I thought I had a good chance of passing.

A bit too confident, it appears.

The official pass rate was 24%.

Here are a couple typical test-questions:

A typical quota question.

For this one, I have to look up using the HTS for “chocolates.”

Here are a couple of ones I thought were quite difficult:

For this question, the asnwer lies in the names of all general partners.

In order to get this right, you had to look in the broke compliance section.

My strategy for the next exam

I failed the exam by seven or eight questions (I scored 65%) and, after review, I realized I broke down during the practical exam and classification.

The rest of the exam, I tested fairly well.

Knowing what I know now, I will be devoting more time to classification and getting more familiar with the chapters and general layout of where information is. 

In order to do this, I plan on taking as many practice exams, starting with the most recent and going backwards, at least every weekend, splitting them up on Saturday and Sunday. 

If I can, I’ll try to take some time out over the lunch period Tuesdays and Thursdays (the other days I need to hit the gym).

Taking practice exams---examining why you got that answer wrong--- is the best test prep.

Conclusion

The road to becoming a licensed customs broker has not been easy.

I have been focusing and sacrificing for this exam since July 2023.

I would admit at this stage I have a much better grasp and understanding for the study materials and for the exam itself.

Because the test is 4.30 hours, covering so many topics over a mountain of information, passing the exam has been challenging. 

You really need to want this license so bad to get it.

It takes a lot of time, effort, sacrifice, and physical and mental stamina to keep taking practice exams over and over.

Will it pay off?

I guess we’ll see in April.

Follow my journey: www.InternationalVinh.com