I took the CET exam last month and came in at 64%, just below the 70% passing mark. I work in enterprise IT with about 8 years across cloud and data infrastructure, so the technical foundations section was fine — I probably scored close to 85% there. It's the AI governance and ethics portion where I lost most of my points.
I'd been studying for 5 weeks, averaging 1 hour a day on weekdays. Looking back at what I remember, the questions weren't asking me to define terms — they were presenting organizational scenarios and asking what the right governance approach would be. That's a very different skill from knowing the NIST AI RMF framework in theory.
Has anyone found specific resources that prepare you well for the scenario-based ethics questions? I've gone through the IAMCP study materials and a lot of it feels too surface-level for how the actual exam tests this content. Retake is 6 weeks out.
64% with strong technical scores means you're close. If the ethics section is roughly 25–30% of the exam, bringing it from failing to passing would put your total well above 70%. The NIST AI RMF Playbook has scenario examples in the appendices that are much better practice than the IAMCP materials.
I passed on my first attempt but I work in AI policy so ethics was my strong section. What I noticed is that the exam heavily favors responses involving stakeholder consultation and iterative review over one-time assessments. If a question asks what to do first, 'consult stakeholders' is almost always right.
Six weeks is plenty of time. I'd spend the first two weeks on AI governance frameworks specifically — the EU AI Act risk tiers show up in ways the IAMCP materials don't cover well. Then use weeks 3–6 for scenario practice using real-world case studies.
The scenario-based ethics questions are the hardest part for technical people — we're used to there being a correct answer rather than a 'most appropriate' one. Reading through AI ethics case studies from organizations like the Partnership on AI helped me more than any formal study guide. Real-world examples train the judgment the exam is actually testing.
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