What is Planning Prep?

Planning Prep is a web-based study resource to help planners prepare for the American Institute of Certified Planners’ certification exam.

Members have access to our growing database of practice questions, practice exams, planning related links.

Currently, we have 1668 practice questions and 12 practice exams aimed at refreshing, broadening, and testing their planning knowledge. Each question contains an explanation for each correct answer, so our members know why one answer is correct and another is not. Links for further reading are also provided with our questions, to help our members find additional information about the topic.

Membership

Membership to Planning Prep is free. Why? Great question - see the FAQ

Brief History & Update

When we were studying for the AICP exam in 2001, most materials were photocopied “legacy” documents passed between coworkers. The Internet was young — Yahoo! was directory-based, AltaVista and Ask Jeeve's were popular, and Google was still finding its way. There was no searchable online resource for planners — no Wikipedia, no nothing. Practice exams came with answer keys that only listed A, B, C, or D, with no explanation or rationale.

We decided to change that. We built a site that explained why answers were right or wrong and could evolve over time. It took a few months of late nights and weekends to code and create the content, but by 2002 Planning Prep was live. The following year we received an award from the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association. Since then, more than 16,000 planners have used the site, with many more joining our in-person training sessions across the country.

Two decades later, Planning Prep is being modernized and refreshed by our team at Houseal Lavigne. You can read more about the relaunch here: View the full story on LinkedIn.

We wish you the best of luck on your journey to AICP certification and hope you find the site useful.

Sincerely,

Devin Lavigne & Trevor Dick
Planning Prep Co-Creators

Question of The Week

According to the EPA, __________ is going to be the biggest environmental issue in the 21st century.

  A)   Garbage
  B)   Soils
  C)   Trees
  D)   Water

   

Important Dates

Fall 2025

Registration Window: October 1-29, 2025
Testing Window: November 3-30, 2025

Spring 2026

Dates TBD

You can find the full details here

Features

  • 1668 practice questions, taken by random, by category (i.e. history, theory and law), or searchable by keyword.  Questions provide the answers to the questions, along with links providing additional research.

  • 12 Practice exams, 150-questions in length to help you pace and prepare for the AICP* exam.

  • Detailed user statistics tell each of our members their strengths and weaknesses. They know how many questions they have taken, how many they have gotten correct, as a total and by area of focus.

  • Links to all types of websites and resources for further research.