So I just got my Linux Essentials certification last week and honestly I'm still kind of shocked. Failed my first attempt in February with a 540 (need 500 to pass, so yeah, way too close for comfort on the wrong side). The thing that tripped me up was the command line stuff — I'd been studying theory but hadn't actually been using a terminal regularly.
Between attempts I spent about 6 weeks grinding through an 010 160 study guide I found, but more importantly I set up a Ubuntu VM and forced myself to do everything from the command line. Permissions, file hierarchy, basic scripting — just hands-on repetition. I also did a bunch of 010 160 practice test sets to get comfortable with how LPI phrases their questions, which is kind of its own skill honestly.
My exam tips for anyone preparing: don't skip the open source and licensing section, it's boring but there are more questions on it than you'd expect. And know your basic commands cold — not just what they do but common flags. Anyone else have a rough first attempt before getting through it?