[ubernostrum]

It is perhaps a silly requirement, considering that the salespeople still passed the required exam.

Supposing that the exam is supposed to test the candidate's actual knowledge -- i.e., their ability to correctly represent things and act in compliance with the law while engaged in conversation with potential customers -- I certainly can see a risk of someone just saying "eh, I'll skip the material, take the exam with a reference open on my desk, pass it and be fine" and then getting into major trouble later when it turns out they did actually need to know a lot of that stuff off the top of their head in order to do their job.