People on HN seem to be misunderstanding the purpose of this exam. This exam is not for web programmers, or game programmers, or any "startup"-type programmers. If what you do can be done iteratively without much problem, this exam is not for you.

This exam is for people who work on very difficult, very error-sensitive, very high-end stuff that needs to work from the very start: jet planes, medical devices, spacevessel systems, etc. You don't get second chances with these types of systems, so this exam is focused on making sure passers know the gold standard for how coding is currently done in these areas.