No — the IAPP AIGP exam is closed book. You cannot bring notes, the EU AI Act text, printed materials, or reference documents into the testing environment, and no external resources are permitted whether you sit the exam at a Pearson VUE test center or via OnVUE online proctoring. This is one of the most common pre-exam questions candidates ask, and the answer genuinely surprises people coming from open-book professional exams in other fields.
If you're coming to the AIGP from a background where professional exams are open book — some accounting, legal, and engineering certifications allow reference materials — it's a reasonable question to ask before you build your study plan around it. The short answer is that the AIGP is closed book, and understanding exactly what that means for how you prepare matters more than the one-word answer suggests, because the format has direct, specific implications for which study methods actually work and which merely feel productive.
What "Closed Book" Actually Means for the AIGP
The AIGP is administered through Pearson VUE under standard proctored-exam conditions, which means no external materials of any kind are permitted during the exam. You will not have access to the text of the EU AI Act, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, your own study notes, printed summaries, or any digital reference. Everything you need to answer a question must come from your own knowledge at the moment you sit down. This applies identically whether you test in person at a Pearson VUE center or remotely through OnVUE online proctoring — the format changes, but the closed-book rule does not.
The AIGP tests knowledge of dense, detailed regulatory frameworks — the EU AI Act's risk tiers, specific NIST RMF functions, various global regulations. Candidates sometimes assume that because the source material is so reference-heavy, the exam must allow you to look things up. It doesn't. The exam is specifically designed to test whether you've internalized how these frameworks work and can apply them, not whether you can locate the right clause in a document under time pressure.
Why the AIGP Is Closed Book by Design
The closed-book format isn't an arbitrary constraint — it reflects what the credential is actually meant to certify. The AIGP is designed to validate that you can reason about AI governance situations using internalized knowledge of the relevant frameworks, not that you can retrieve and interpret reference material on demand. In real AI governance work, the value of a practitioner often lies precisely in recognizing which framework or principle applies to a novel situation without needing to research it from scratch — the closed-book format is built to test for exactly that kind of internalized, applied understanding. A credential that instead certified research speed — how quickly you could locate the right clause in a reference document — would be measuring something quite different from the governance judgment employers hiring AIGP-certified professionals actually want to verify.
This design choice has a direct, practical consequence for how you should study: memorization of isolated facts matters far less than genuinely understanding how the frameworks fit together, because the exam's scenario-based questions require you to apply concepts to situations you haven't seen before, not recall a specific sentence from a document you could otherwise have open in front of you.
How Closed-Book Format Should Shape Your Study Approach
Prioritize applied understanding over rote memorization
Since you can't look anything up, and since the exam is scenario-heavy rather than definition-heavy, focus your study on understanding why frameworks are structured the way they are, not just memorizing their components in isolation.
Practice retrieval, not just review
Reading material repeatedly creates a false sense of readiness for a closed-book exam. Active recall — testing yourself without the material in front of you — is the study method that actually mirrors exam conditions, since the exam itself is one long exercise in retrieval without reference.
Build mental maps of how frameworks relate
The EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, and ISO 42001 each address AI governance from a different angle. Understanding how they overlap and differ — something you can't reconstruct by looking up individual documents mid-exam — is exactly the kind of integrated knowledge closed-book scenario questions reward.
Don't over-invest in memorizing exact statutory language
Because the exam tests application rather than recall of exact wording, spending hours memorizing the precise text of specific EU AI Act articles is generally a poor use of study time compared to understanding what those articles actually require and why.
Candidates often ask whether they can use scratch paper to work through scenario questions. At a Pearson VUE test center, the center provides its own erasable note board or equivalent under controlled conditions — you cannot bring your own paper. For OnVUE online proctoring, the rules are more restrictive and are set by Pearson VUE's remote proctoring policy, which you should confirm directly before your exam, since bringing unauthorized materials into view of the webcam can result in your exam being terminated.
How the AIGP's Closed-Book Format Compares to Related IAPP Exams
If you've taken or are planning to take other IAPP certifications, it's worth knowing that the closed-book format is consistent across the IAPP's core credential exams — CIPP variants, CIPM, and CIPT all follow the same proctored, no-reference-material approach through Pearson VUE. So if you've already sat a CIPP/E or CIPM exam, the AIGP's closed-book conditions will feel familiar, and if the AIGP is your first IAPP exam, knowing the format is shared across the credential family means your preparation habits will transfer directly to any future IAPP certification you pursue as part of a stack.
This consistency also means the broader body of candidate experience around IAPP exam conditions applies to the AIGP — the same active-recall study methods that work for CIPP and CIPM candidates work for AIGP candidates, because the underlying constraint (no reference material, scenario-based application questions) is the same. If you're building toward the Fellow of Information Privacy designation by stacking AIGP with a CIPP credential, you can develop one closed-book study discipline and apply it across both exams rather than treating them as requiring fundamentally different preparation approaches.
What Closed-Book Format Means for Time Management
There's a subtle but real connection between the closed-book format and how you should manage time during the exam itself. Because you can't look anything up, there's no productive way to "research" a question you're unsure about mid-exam — the information either is or isn't in your head. This has a practical implication: dwelling excessively on a question you genuinely don't know, hoping the answer will surface, is usually less productive than making your best-reasoned choice, flagging it for review if time permits, and moving on. In an open-book exam, extra time on a hard question can pay off through research; in the AIGP's closed-book format, that same time is often better spent ensuring you reach and carefully read every question, since a question you never see because you ran out of time is a guaranteed miss, while a hard question you reason through carefully still has a real chance of being correct.
This is another reason the closed-book format rewards genuine framework understanding over memorization: when a scenario question presents a situation you haven't seen before, the ability to reason from first principles about which framework or governance concept applies is what lets you make a strong best-reasoned choice quickly, rather than freezing because you can't recall a specific fact you were hoping to lean on.
What You Can and Can't Bring
| Item | Permitted? |
|---|---|
| EU AI Act text, printed or digital | No |
| Personal study notes or summaries | No |
| Textbooks or reference guides | No |
| Your own scratch paper | No — the test center provides its own note materials |
| Phone or smartwatch | No — stored outside the testing room |
| Government-issued ID | Yes — required for check-in |
Because rules on permitted and prohibited items can change and can differ slightly between in-person and online delivery, always confirm the current specifics directly through your Pearson VUE exam confirmation and the IAPP's official candidate guidance before exam day, rather than relying on any third-party summary, including this one.
The Retrieval-Practice Method in Detail
Since active recall is the single most important study adjustment a closed-book format demands, it's worth being specific about what genuinely effective retrieval practice looks like, because "test yourself" is easy advice to nod at and hard to actually do well. Effective retrieval practice means closing the study material entirely and attempting to reconstruct a concept from memory before checking whether you got it right — not rereading a summary and feeling familiar with it, which produces the illusion of knowledge without the underlying retrieval ability the exam actually tests.
A practical structure that mirrors AIGP exam conditions: after studying a framework like the EU AI Act's risk tiers, close everything and try to write out, from memory, what each tier requires and what kinds of systems fall into it. Then check your reconstruction against the source and note specifically where your memory failed. Those failure points — not the parts you already knew — are where your remaining study time should concentrate. Repeated over a study period, this method builds exactly the internalized, retrieval-ready knowledge a closed-book exam requires, in a way that passive rereading fundamentally cannot, no matter how many times you review the same material.
Scenario-based practice questions are the most exam-realistic form of this retrieval practice, since they force you to apply framework knowledge to a novel situation under the same no-reference constraint the real exam imposes. Working through practice scenarios, closing the explanation, and reasoning to an answer before checking it replicates the actual cognitive task the AIGP measures far more faithfully than any amount of rereading study notes — which, again, you won't have access to when it actually counts.
Stop thinking of the AIGP as a test of what you can find, and start thinking of it as a test of what you can apply. Once you genuinely internalize that no reference material is coming to rescue you mid-exam, your study naturally shifts toward the active-recall and framework-integration methods that actually work for a closed-book, scenario-based exam — which is a far better use of preparation time than memorizing material you'd have been allowed to reference if only the format were different.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the IAPP AIGP exam open book or closed book?
Closed book. No notes, reference materials, the EU AI Act text, or external resources are permitted, whether you test in person at a Pearson VUE center or online via OnVUE proctoring.
Can I bring the EU AI Act text into the AIGP exam?
No. No printed or digital reference materials of any kind are permitted. The exam tests your internalized understanding and application of the frameworks, not your ability to locate information in a document.
Can I use scratch paper during the AIGP exam?
You cannot bring your own paper. Pearson VUE test centers provide their own note materials under controlled conditions; for OnVUE online proctoring, confirm the current policy directly with Pearson VUE before your exam.
Since the exam is closed book, should I memorize the exact text of regulations?
Generally no. The AIGP is scenario-based and tests application rather than recall of exact wording, so understanding what frameworks require and why is a better use of study time than memorizing precise statutory language.
The AIGP is closed book — no notes, no regulation text, no reference materials, in person or online. Rather than being a disadvantage, understanding this early lets you study the right way: prioritizing active recall and genuine framework integration over rote memorization or any expectation of looking things up mid-exam. Always confirm the current permitted-items rules through official Pearson VUE and IAPP guidance before your test date, since exam-day policies can change.
Related reading: what to expect on AIGP exam day, the AIGP passing score explained, and how many hours to study for the AIGP.