The IAPP sells one AIGP practice exam, a PDF of 100 questions with explanations, and everything else that calls itself an AIGP practice exam is somebody else's. That is worth knowing before you spend money or time on either. This guide sets out what the official practice exam is, from the IAPP's store page and study guide; what a document of questions can and cannot rehearse about an exam taken on a clock in two halves; what the searches for a free or PDF practice exam actually return, and the handbook's rule about some of it; and how to run a mock so that it tells you something: where you stand by domain, and whether the exam's own rhythm holds any surprises.
The short answer
- The IAPP's practice exam is "100 practice questions (presented in a PDF) similar in format and content to the AIGP exam", with "Correct answers with explanations provided for each question", for US$50 to members and US$60 to others, delivered at once through the MyIAPP portal.
- It is a document, not a sitting. It shows the wording and the format; it cannot rehearse the 2.75-hour clock, the two halves that lock, or the multi-select label on screen.
- Free practice from the IAPP is three example questions in its study guide. Everything else that is free is third-party, and the handbook treats "dump sites" as cheating.
- A mock is useful when it mirrors the exam: 100 questions in two halves of 50 on half the time each, with a section breakdown by domain at the end, which is what the IAPP sends you after the real one.
- The study guide's order: read the Body of Knowledge, get training if you want it, take the practice exam, then buy and schedule the exam.
What is the IAPP's AIGP practice exam?
The store page describes it in a paragraph: "The AIGP Practice Exam complements your training and studying by introducing you to the exam's format while identifying areas where you might need more preparation. Accurately representing the content and format of the official AIGP exam, all practice questions are written by IAPP-selected AI governance experts and developed from the same body of knowledge used for the actual certification exam."
What you get is listed under "Included in your purchase": "Access to your AIGP Practice Exam immediately upon purchase through your MyIAPP portal", "100 practice questions (presented in a PDF) similar in format and content to the AIGP exam", and "Correct answers with explanations provided for each question." The page's "Insights you will gain" are four: "A preview of the exam format", "Familiarity with exam question wording", "Areas requiring further study", and "Insight into your potential performance on the final exam."
The study guide says the same from the candidate's side: "The AIGP practice exam consists of 100 questions in the same format as the official certification exam. The questions are developed by IAPP-selected experts to match the depth and rigor of the actual exam." It is step three of the guide's four-step preparation, after reviewing the Body of Knowledge and getting training, and before purchasing and scheduling the exam.
The price on the store page on October 21, 2026 is 50.00 USD for members and 60.00 USD for non-members, with a maximum purchase of one unit, in English. The exam itself is US$649 for members and US$799 for non-members, so the practice exam costs less than a tenth of either exam fee.
What a PDF can and cannot rehearse
The practice exam is worth its price for what it is: 100 questions in the IAPP's own wording, from the people who write the exam, with the reasoning under each answer. Read it for the shape of a question, the length of a stem, the way the four options are built, and which Body of Knowledge indicator each one is pointing at. "Familiarity with exam question wording" is the store's phrase, and it is the right one.
What a PDF cannot do is run the exam. Four things about the real sitting are not in a document:
The clock. The store's one sentence on the exam: "It consists of 100 questions and has an allotted time of 2.75 hours with a 15-minute break and must be completed within one year of purchase." That is 165 minutes for 100 questions, about 99 seconds each, and 15 of the 100 are unscored questions you cannot tell apart from the rest.
The halves. The handbook: "Halfway through the exam, the candidate will be offered a 15-minute break. This break divides the exam into two distinct halves, each containing half the total exam questions and half the total time limit." And: "The candidate cannot return to the first half after submission." A PDF lets you go back; the exam does not.
The multi-select label. The FAQs describe questions that "ask test takers to select a specific number of correct responses from the options provided (for example, 'Select 3 of the 5 options below')", labeled on screen, with "No partial credit". On paper you can mark three options and move on; on screen the discipline is counting your ticks against the label.
The result. After the real exam, "The screen will display the result of Pass or Fail along with your score on our scoring scale", and the FAQs say you receive "a section breakdown after the completion of your exam, which indicates the percentage of your correct answers per each blueprint domain". A PDF gives you a count; a mock built like the exam gives you the breakdown, which is what the retake rules make you study from.
So the practice exam and a mock do different jobs. The first teaches you the IAPP's wording; the second teaches you the IAPP's clock.
Is there a free AIGP practice exam?
From the IAPP, three questions. Its study guide, which is free, prints "Example questions" on page 6 with the answers on page 8: two single-answer questions and one multi-select under the label "MULTI-SELECT: Please select 3 of the 5 options below. No partial credit will be given." They are the only questions in the IAPP's own words that you will see before the exam, and they are described in AIGP exam questions: what they look like, not reprinted.
Everything else that a search for a free AIGP practice exam, a practice exam PDF, or practice questions on a flashcard site or a forum returns is written by someone other than the IAPP. Some of it is honest practice written to the Body of Knowledge; some of it claims to be the exam. The handbook addresses the second kind directly: "any website, enterprise or individual claiming to have live IAPP exam content have obtained or reproduced them without permission. Candidates who knowingly access this illegally-obtained exam content through exam 'dump sites' or by other means are in violation of the pre-exam non-disclosure agreements and could face disciplinary action from the IAPP." The sanctions it lists run from "Invalidation of exam results" to "Revocation of existing certifications".
The handbook also sets the limit on every third party's practice, this site's included: materials "produced or distributed by any enterprise or individual other than the IAPP and its official training partners (OTPs) are not endorsed by the IAPP". What honest practice can offer is questions in the exam's format, written to the Body of Knowledge, each with its reasoning. What it cannot offer is the exam's questions, and nothing that offers them is worth the risk the handbook describes.
How to run a mock exam
A mock is worth running once you have studied, not before, because its result is a map of what to study next. Five rules make it useful.
- Mirror the format. 100 questions, in two halves of 50, each on half the time: 82 minutes and 30 seconds a half. Submit the first half before the second, and do not look back at it; the real exam will not let you.
- Draw at the blueprint's weights. The Body of Knowledge gives each competency a range of the 85 scored questions, from 3 to 5 for industry standards and tools up to 9 to 11 for deployment and use. A mock that draws 40 questions from one domain tells you about that domain, not about the exam.
- Include the multi-select shape. Some questions ask for three of five; practice counting your ticks against the label, and treat each option as its own true-or-false.
- Read the breakdown, not the total. The exam reports your result by domain; a mock should too. A domain where you missed a third of the questions is where the next hours go, whatever the overall count.
- Keep the total in proportion. A raw count on a mock is not a prediction of the scaled 300. The FAQs say "The passing score for all IAPP exams is 300 (which does not represent 60%)", and the number of correct answers behind it is not published. Use the mock to find weak domains and to rehearse the clock; use the Body of Knowledge to decide when you are ready.
How many practice questions do you need?
The IAPP gives no number, only the order of work: the study guide's four steps put the practice exam after the Body of Knowledge and before the exam. The useful measure is coverage, not count. The Body of Knowledge has 58 performance indicators, and "Questions may be asked from any of the topics listed under each area". A practice set that has asked you something about every indicator, in every shape the exam uses, has done its job; a set that asks 500 questions about Domain I has not.
Our bank is built that way: 1,364 questions across the 13 competencies, each written to an indicator, with its rationale, 114 of them multi-select in the IAPP's 3-of-5 format, and a mock that draws 100 at the blueprint's weights in two halves. None of them is printed on the site; practice is in the app, where your progress is kept, and the first competency, AI and the need for governance, is free in full with a free account: five lessons, 100 questions and 118 flashcards. How practice works here describes the bank, and How to study for the AIGP puts the mock in the last week of a 30-hour plan.
Buying the IAPP's practice exam: when
If you buy it, the study guide's order is the right one: after the Body of Knowledge and before the exam, as a reading of the IAPP's wording and a check on where you are weak. Its explanations are the IAPP's, which no third party can offer, and its 100 questions are the closest you will get to the exam's own voice. Pair it with a mock on the clock, and the two together cover what the exam asks and how it asks it.
By QualExam editorial. Written against the certifying body’s published documents, pinned by hash so a revised edition shows up as a change.