This is the true sad part about the personal training industry. There are no standards and someone with a certification from a shit place like this can call themselves a trainer.
More reputable organizations like ASCM are much better and also have a practical portion which was challenging at the time.
I am totally embarrassed by these types of trainers as they think they have the knowledge they need but do not.
Some gyms are getting smarter and only hiring trainers with degrees or a certification from one of the top few that actually have an appropriate test.
I do know that training is not only about the degree or certification, but the work that one goes through to get a degree and/or reputable certification does help.
From what I've seen (work at a gym) there are just as many bad trainers being taught by these so-called "top of the line" organizations.
Though, your comment on it not being only the degree or certification makes more sense to me. It seems that there are way too many trainers who get their certification through ACE or whatever and looked like they have never worked out in their life and sound like morons with broscience, etc. while there are guys who have legitimate knowledge (doing it all their life, etc.) who won't get hired because they aren't certified. It's to the point where they take the certificate too much into consideration. We hired a trainer that had like 5 degrees/certificates in the area. He was probably late 20's, however you had to be an idiot to buy any sort of training from him. We had 65 year olds in better shape then him.