I've been prepping for the CE exam for about 5 weeks at 2 hours a day and I can't tell if I'm over- or under-preparing. The trade documentation and Incoterms sections feel solid but the customs classification and export control regulations keep tripping me up. The overlap between EAR, ITAR, and BIS license exception categories is a lot to keep straight.
Practice scores are sitting around 74-76% and I've read the passing mark is roughly 70%, so I'm technically close but not confident enough to schedule. The AES filing and USPPI responsibility questions feel like they could swing my score a lot depending on how heavily they're weighted.
Anyone who's taken this recently — how dense is the Schedule B vs HTS code section? That's another area where I keep second-guessing myself. The concepts aren't hard but the exam-style phrasing throws me off on practice questions.
Also wondering whether doing the NASBITE CGBP makes sense alongside this or if that's overkill for someone already working in export compliance full time.
If you're hitting 74-76% consistently I'd say schedule it and use the next 10 days drilling customs classification specifically. That section has some tricky questions around Schedule B vs HTS codes that are worth a focused pass.
Took it 4 months ago and passed with 77% on the first try. AES and USPPI questions were definitely on there — probably 8-10 questions worth. The EAR vs ITAR overlap you mentioned was the section that required the most re-reading for me too.
The CGBP covers overlapping territory but goes much broader into trade finance and global marketing — neither of which shows up on the CE at all. Finish the CE first and then decide if the broader scope is worth it for where you want to go professionally.
Just passed last month so this is fresh. Honestly, 5 weeks at 2 hours a day sounds like plenty for most of the material, but the EAR/ITAR/BIS overlap is genuinely confusing and it tripped me up too until I stopped trying to memorize each regulation separately and started thinking about it as "who controls what and why." EAR is Commerce and covers dual-use, ITAR is State and it's strictly military/defense, BIS enforces EAR. Once that clicked the questions got a lot easier.
The thing that actually made the difference for me was doing practice questions on export control scenarios specifically, not just reading the rules. You'll see a fact pattern and have to figure out which regime applies, and that's where people lose points. Don't just know the definitions, know how to apply them to a situation. Customs classification felt hard too until I drilled harmonized tariff schedule lookups over and over. You're probably closer than you think.
I failed my first attempt and honestly it was the EAR/ITAR overlap that got me too. What I didn't realize until after was that I'd been studying them as separate topics when the questions are designed to test exactly where they blur together. Second time around I spent two full weeks just on that gray zone, specifically BIS jurisdiction versus State Department jurisdiction, and it clicked way faster than I expected once I stopped treating them like different subjects.
Five weeks at two hours a day sounds about right if you're drilling the hard stuff, not just reviewing what you already know. The customs classification questions tripped me up because I wasn't practicing with actual Schedule B codes, I was just reading about the process. That's the gap. If Incoterms and trade docs feel solid, don't waste more time there. Shift everything you've got into the export controls section and make sure you can work through scenarios, not just definitions. That's what the exam actually tests.