What a joke
Ok, I really think the AICP exam is a joke. All if measures is your ability to cram a bunch of irrelevant information and hope you can remember enough to pass. It has no bearing on whether you are a good planner or not.
The AICP, in my opinion, is a feeble attempt by the APA to "legitimize" the planning profession (and raise a ton of extra money in the process). Planners suffer from an inadequacy complex...we are not as technical as engineers, as artistic as architects, as shrewd as politicians, or as knwledgable as lawyers, but we have to know elements of each of those professions and much much more. There is such a wide variety of knowledge, job duities, and laws that planners have to deal with that a 150 question test is a complete joke if the APA is trying to measure what planners "should" know.
Professions such as engineers, architectcs, doctors, and lawyers have extensive certification requirements because if they don't know something, it can have serious results. If a lawyer screws up, the client could wind up in jail for life, if a doctor screws up, someone could die, if an architect screws up, a building can collapse. If a planner screws up, what happens? Some building is too close to a road? A resident has to deal with a McDonalds next door? You get the picture.
If I don't know details about the City Beautiful movement, does that make me a bad planner? If I don't know who wrote some obscure planning book, does that mean that I am unworthy of the AICP designation? I would hope not, but the way the AICP is set up, not knowing who wrote some stupid opinionated book could cost a planner their certification, and that isn't right.