Finally passed my ASNT Level II after three attempts — here's what worked

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it — this exam humbled me. Failed my first two attempts at ASNT Level II UT by a pretty embarrassing margin and almost gave up entirely. What changed on attempt three was actually slowing down and treating the written portion seriously instead of coasting on my field experience. I logged about 80 hours over six weeks using a structured ASNT study guide rather than just skimming the SNT-TC-1A standard like I had been doing.

The thing that finally clicked was doing timed ASNT practice test sets so I'd stop second-guessing myself on the method-specific questions. Especially the calibration and discontinuity sizing stuff — that tripped me up badly on attempt two. I'd hit a question and just spiral. Timed reps fixed that completely.

For anyone else grinding through this, what resources are you using? I know the official ASNT study materials are expensive. Are the third-party prep sites worth it, or did you just go straight to the body of knowledge documents? Would love to hear what's working for people in different methods — I'm already eyeing Level III RT down the road.