Dude
I'm with you - to a point.
It's not so much a case of 'trick you up' as moving the question away from the wording of the rule to use in practice. That's probably fair.
But in support of your feeling, two things:
Much of the syllabus is stuff that seems to be boned up for the exam, then never used thereafter - so one questions its relevance.
and
The exam is written. The population is about one-third each visual, auditory, and kinesthetic as first preference for communication. So a written exam is right up the alley of only one-third of the population. The other two-thirds does it harder.
The gaps in the system are proven by the need to run seminars and issue flyers and institute extra training (Human factors etc) to cater for what was not taught or examined. As a result, the exam remains the key to actually commencing the learning
Lasio
Afterthought - I think APEC was a TRA with an embedded ACZ rather than an ADIZ as such.