Yes — the NFLPA Contract Advisor exam is open book. Candidates may bring printed reference materials into the exam room. But “open book” is frequently misunderstood as “easy,” and that misunderstanding causes real preparation failures.
What Open Book Actually Means
Open book means you can bring printed materials. It does not mean you can sit down cold and look everything up. With 60 questions and 3 hours, you have an average of 3 minutes per question. If you spend 2 minutes flipping through the CBA looking for an answer, you have 1 minute to actually read, understand, and select it.
Why Retrieval Speed Beats Memorization
The candidates who pass are not the ones who memorized the most. They are the ones who can navigate their reference materials the fastest. That is a trained skill — and it only develops through repeated practice under timed conditions.
What to Bring Into the Exam Room
The most effective candidates bring a condensed, purpose-built reference — not the full CBA with sticky notes. A well-organized exam-day reference lets you find any answer in under 60 seconds. That is the difference between finishing with time to spare and running out of clock.
AthleteRepLab's Exam-Day Edition is a 200-page condensed guide built specifically for this purpose. Tab-ready, highlight-friendly, and organized around how questions actually appear on the exam.
The Practical Implication for Study
Because the exam is open book, many candidates underinvest in navigation practice. Do not make that mistake. Your prep should include building and rehearsing your reference system, not just reading the underlying material.