The exam tries to ensure that you know enough to be competent. The required hours are there to discourage people from trying to pass the test without actually i

The exam tries to ensure that you know enough to be competent. The required hours are there to discourage people from trying to pass the test without actually internalizing the information. Sure, you could try to just make the test arbitrarily harder, but that's not always possible, and even if it is possible, it's unfair to the people who are capable of learning the required material, but not the material needed to pass the harder test. Also, as has been mentioned, it's partially a liability issue for the state and the company if/when they get sued. Part of their defense can't be that "Oh, well the state licensing exam is super easy, so I only spent an hour cramming the material before the test and then immediately forgot everything, so really you should be going after the state and not me." The required hours