John Smith wrote:

... the "anateur exams" are certainly no hinderence, they always have been
as simple as pie--a college grad trained in the art of "test taking" could
study for a day and pass the most challenging

I think you need to go back and look at the early exams. There was a
time when an applicant was required to actually draw a schematic of
various circuits and explaine how they worked. And even after the exams
became multiple choice type, one had to know the material to get the
correct answer as the answers to the acutal questions were not
available. There were study guides with sample questions, but no
questions pools with the exact answer available for memorization. If you
did not know the theory, then you probably weren't going to pass.
Again john smith knows not of what he speaks.