Anyone else studying for ISA in the next month? Want to study together

The honest answer is: it depends a lot on your background.

If you're already working in this field, the ISA exam is testing knowledge you probably use daily. The "ISA" sections will feel familiar.

If you're coming in from outside, give yourself an extra 2 weeks and really focus on the practical application questions.

The practice tests here are worth doing repeatedly — I did the same test bank multiple times and found new questions I'd missed each time.

For anyone finding this thread later: the ISA is passable with consistent effort, even working full time. I studied 43 minutes a day for 8 weeks. The isa pest and disease diagnosis questions and answers kept me honest about where my gaps were instead of just drilling things I already knew.

Great discussion. One thing nobody mentions: sleep the night before matters more than one more study session. Went in fully rested for my ISA and felt sharper than expected.

The advice about understanding why wrong answers are wrong — not just memorizing right ones — is genuinely the best ISA advice in this thread. Rebuilt my prep around that and it made a real difference.

Just took mine last month and passed, so I get the nerves. The thing that moved the needle for me wasn't rereading the whole arborist manual again. It was hammering practice questions and then actually looking up every single one I got wrong. Pruning was my weak spot too. I drilled this set over and over until the cut types and dosage stuff stuck: free isa proper pruning practices and honestly that alone bumped my confidence a ton.

Don't just do questions once and move on. I'd redo the ones I missed two or three days later to make sure it actually stuck, and that's what made the difference on test day. You've got 7 weeks, that's plenty if you stay consistent. Happy to compare notes since I just went through it and still remember which topics they hit hardest.

Honestly the biggest thing for me was accepting I wasn't going to get long study blocks. I work full time so my "sessions" were whatever I could grab. Mornings before everyone woke up, lunch breaks, sometimes just 20 min in the car before heading in. It adds up more than you'd think. What helped was picking one weak area at a time instead of trying to review everything at once, and pruning was my worst topic by far so I drilled it hard with free isa proper pruning practices until the terminology actually stuck.

If you've got 90 min a day you're already ahead of where I was, so don't stress. I'd say focus on the stuff you keep getting wrong rather than re-reading what you already know. Happy to compare notes if you want, I'm about 5 weeks out myself and could use the accountability too.