How to study for an open-book exam

Module 0: Orientation · lesson 4 of 4 · 9 min

Module 0: Orientation

The last lesson is about how to study. An open-book exam sounds easy, and the pass rate says otherwise. We look at why, at what decades of learning research say actually works, at how each module of this course is built to use it, and at how to find an article in under a minute.

Open book isn’t easy

Three minutes a question leaves no time to read an article from scratch.

In 2025, 1,406 of the 7,745 candidates who sat the exam passed: 18%.

You need to know where the answer is, and most of what it says, before you open the book.

Transcript

Why is an open-book exam so hard to pass? Because the book is over a thousand pages long and you have three minutes a question. In 2025, one thousand four hundred and six of the seven thousand seven hundred and forty-five people who sat the exam passed, about eighteen percent. The candidates who pass don’t look everything up. They already know most answers, and they know exactly where to check the rest. That is what this course trains.

What the research says works

  • Retrieval: test yourself before you reread
  • Spacing: short sessions over weeks beat one long one
  • Interleaving: mix regulations, as the exam does
  • Elaboration: explain why a rule exists, not just what it says
  • Cases: tie each rule to a decision you remember
Transcript

Decades of learning research agree on a handful of techniques. Retrieval: testing yourself builds memory far better than rereading, so answer first and check after. Spacing: short sessions spread over weeks beat one long session. Interleaving: mix topics, because the exam will. Elaboration: ask why a rule exists, because a rule you understand is a rule you remember. And cases: a rule attached to a real decision is far easier to recall than a rule on its own.

How every module works

  1. The case. A real FIFA decision, and a question to answer before the lessons.
  2. The lessons. One idea per slide, each tied to its article.
  3. Check yourself. Answer first. The explanation comes after.
  4. Case study, apply it. Analyse a second case, then advise someone yourself.
  5. Assessment. Exam-style questions, each with the article behind it.
Transcript

Every module is built on that research. It opens with a real case and asks you to answer before you know the rules, because a question you’ve struggled with makes the answer stick. The lessons teach one idea per slide, each tied to its article. Check-yourself questions make you retrieve before you see the explanation. A case study and an apply-it task make you use the rules, and the assessment tests you in the exam’s own style.

Finding an article in under a minute

A question asks for the longest term a representation agreement with a player may have. You have three minutes, and the study pack open on screen.

How to reason it

  1. It’s about agents, so it’s in the Football Agent Regulations, from page 261.
  2. Representation agreements come under acting as a football agent, from article 11.
  3. Article 12 covers representation, and paragraph 3 sets the maximum term.
  4. Read the paragraph, check each option against it, and move on.

Answer: Two years, under article 12(3) of the FFAR, found in well under a minute, with the map in your head.

Transcript

Let’s practise the skill that wins marks. The question asks for the longest term a representation agreement with a player can have. Which regulation? Agents, so the Football Agent Regulations, starting on page two hundred and sixty-one. Which part? Acting as a football agent, from article eleven. Article twelve deals with representation, and paragraph three says an agreement with a player may not exceed two years. Read it, check the options, move on. That took under a minute.

A plan for the 2027 exam

Check the Platform from early January. The 2026 window, set by circular 1956, ran from 20 January to 6 March.

Apply early, pay the exam fee as soon as FIFA asks, and complete the mandatory readiness check.

Then modules 1 to 10, about one a week, with daily mixed self-tests, and the capstone and practice exam in the final fortnight.

Transcript

Here is a plan. First, check the Platform from early January; in 2026 the window opened on the twentieth of January and closed on the sixth of March. Apply early, pay the exam fee as soon as FIFA asks (in 2025, four thousand seven hundred and ninety-two applications were rejected for an unpaid fee), and complete the mandatory readiness check. Then work through modules one to ten, about one a week, test yourself a little every day, and save module eleven, the capstone and practice exam, for the final fortnight.

Check your understanding

Question 1. Which study plan does the research on learning support best?

Choose one answer.

Question 2. With ten minutes left, you have three questions to go, one of them long. What is the best use of the time?

Choose one answer.

Analyse a decided case

Inside the 2025 exam

  • FIFA ran 2,356 exam sessions over two days, with 527 invigilators and candidates from 157 countries.
  • Only 5,122 of the 9,148 scheduled candidates, 56%, used the pre-exam readiness check.
  • Candidates sat the exam in English (55%), Spanish (21%), French (20%) or German (4%).
  • 59 applications were rejected for breaching the exam rules of conduct.
  • Results came out on 3 July 2025. Of 662 requests for a review, 164 led to a pass.

Questions

  1. Why does a breach of the exam rules cost a candidate more than that one attempt?
  2. In 2025, 44% of candidates skipped the readiness check. Why can’t a candidate do that now?
  3. One in four review requests led to a pass. Should a candidate who narrowly fails ask for a review?
  4. Write a checklist a candidate could use in the week before the exam.

Source: FIFA Football Agents Report · December 2025 · Football Agents Report, pp. 10–11

Apply it yourself

You are helping a friend prepare for the 2027 exam.

  • Sofia works full time and has twelve weeks until the exam. She plans to sit it at her local café, which has fast Wi-Fi, with the study pack printed and her own notes beside her laptop.
  • She intends to skip the readiness check, leave multiple-answer questions blank when unsure, and pay the exam fee once she has finished revising.

Your task

  1. List every part of Sofia’s plan that breaks FIFA’s rules or risks her attempt, and what each would cost her.
  2. Explain how a multiple-answer question is marked, and what she should do when unsure.
  3. Draft a twelve-week study plan using the course’s modules and the research on learning.
  4. Write her a short exam-day checklist.

Back to the opening case

The year of the online exam

Most never reached a question. FIFA rejected 4,792 applications for an unpaid exam fee, 1,683 applicants withdrew, and about 490 failed its eligibility checks. Of the 9,148 scheduled, 1,403 didn’t attend. Of the 7,745 who sat, 18% passed. In all, 8,372 applicants never sat the exam: more than the 6,339 who sat it and failed.

Compare this with the answer you wrote at the start. Identify the rule or fact that changed your reasoning.

Consolidate

What you learned

  • You learned the route to a licence (apply in the annual window, be eligible, pass, then pay within 90 days) and that in 2025 more applicants never sat the exam than sat it and failed.
  • You learned how the exam runs: a mandatory readiness check, twenty questions in 60 minutes, 75% to pass, one or more correct options, no half marks, and only FIFA’s electronic study materials allowed.
  • You discovered what the questions are based on, where each regulation sits in the study pack, and that the exam leaves out the FFAR provisions suspended by circular 1873.
  • You discovered how to study for an open-book exam: test yourself, space and mix your sessions, tie rules to cases, and practise finding articles fast.