What Materials Are Permitted

The NPPE is generally administered as an open-book exam, meaning candidates can bring approved reference material into the exam. Typically this means bound printed material — textbooks, personal notes organized in a bound format — while loose papers and electronic devices are commonly restricted. Confirm the exact current rules with your provincial association before exam day; being turned away or having material confiscated at check-in over an avoidable technicality is not how you want to start the exam.

Why Open-Book Doesn't Mean Easy

Candidates sometimes under-prepare for open-book exams, assuming they can look up whatever they don't know. The NPPE's time limit makes this a losing strategy — searching for answers you should already understand burns through time you need for the questions that genuinely require judgment, not lookup. Treat the exam as if it were closed-book during your studying, and treat your permitted materials as a safety net for details, not a substitute for actually knowing the material.

How to Organize Your Reference Material Before Exam Day

• Build your reference material as you study, not the night before — you'll internalize where things are located if you compiled it yourself over weeks.
• Use clear section tabs or headers organized by topic (professional practice, ethics, contract law, tort law) so you're not flipping through pages under pressure.
• Keep it lean. A shorter, well-organized set of notes you actually know how to navigate beats a comprehensive binder you've never practiced searching through.
• Practice using it during your own timed practice exams, so the physical act of finding something is already familiar by exam day.

Time-Saving Lookup Strategies

When you do need to check something during the real exam, have a clear mental map of where it lives in your material before you start searching — flipping page by page wastes time you don't have. A well-organized table of contents or tabbed index in your own notes pays for itself many times over in a timed exam.

Wiscademy's practice exams are timed the same way the real exam is, which is the best way to find out — before exam day — whether your reference strategy actually holds up under pressure or just feels organized when you're not being timed.