I've been compiling resources as I study for my APICS - American Production and Inventory Control Society Certified certification and figured I'd share what I've found. All free unless noted.
Practice Tests:
- PracticeTestGeeks — most comprehensive collection I've found, good question explanations, covers APICS - American Production and Inventory Control Society Certified, CLA - Certified Logistics Analyst, and CLA - Certified Logistics Associate. Free.
- Official practice materials from the certifying body — usually 1 free sample exam, worth doing even though it's short
Study Materials:
- The official APICS exam handbook / candidate guide (PDF, free from the certifying body's website)
- YouTube — search for "APICS exam prep" — there are surprisingly good free video reviews for most supply chain & logistics certifications
- Reddit r/certifications — people post their exam experiences and tips regularly
Paid (worth it if budget allows):
- Official study guides run $30-80 for most supply chain & logistics certifications — worth it if your exam has lots of specific factual content
- Some certifying bodies offer prep courses — check if your employer covers it (many do for required certifications)
What resources have others found useful for supply chain & logistics exams? I'll add them to this list.
Great list. I'd add: LinkedIn Learning has some supply chain & logistics-related courses that overlap with cert content, and if you have a library card many libraries give free access to it. Also check if your local library has access to O'Reilly or similar — tons of technical content there.
For APICS - American Production and Inventory Control Society Certified specifically, I found the PracticeTestGeeks explanations were detailed enough that I didn't need to buy a separate study guide. The combination of doing the practice questions + reading every explanation (for both right and wrong answers) covered most of the content I needed.
The official candidate guide is something a lot of people skip but it literally tells you the topic weighting and domain breakdown. It's the roadmap for your study plan. Never skip it.
Just wanted to jump in with a quick update since I've been lurking this thread for weeks. I finally broke 80% on the apics inventory management section yesterday, which felt huge because that was honestly my weakest area. The questions there are no joke, but once it clicked it really clicked.
I'm planning to sit the actual exam in mid-July, so I've got about five weeks left. Wasn't sure I'd be ready but the practice scores are trending up and I feel way more confident than I did a month ago. Good luck to everyone else grinding through this stuff, it's a slog but you'll get there.
Honestly I almost bailed on this thing after my first practice run, the gap between what I thought I knew and what the actual questions were testing was pretty humbling. I didn't touch a paid course until like two weeks before my test date and even then I wasn't sure it was worth it. What kept me going was drilling free practice tests until the question patterns started clicking, and once they did it felt like a switch flipped.
If you're in that "maybe I should just postpone" phase, don't. Keep grinding the free stuff, read every explanation even on questions you got right, and give it more time than you think you need. It's not a fun process but it's absolutely passable without spending a fortune, I'm proof of that.
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