Passed CEA first try — the regulations section was harder than I expected

Just got my results. Passed with a 77%. Five years in environmental compliance, mostly air quality permitting and stormwater. I want to write this up while the details are fresh.

The regulations section was the hardest part for me, not because I don't know environmental law, but because the questions test the specific regulatory citation and framework in a way that field work doesn't require. You know the rule; you might not remember it's 40 CFR Part 60 vs Part 63 under pressure.

What helped: the cea environmental regulations & compliance practice questions plus making a one-page cheat sheet of the major federal regulatory frameworks before the exam (obviously didn't bring it in, but writing it out helped cement the structure). I studied about 90 minutes a day for six weeks.

The auditing methodology section was more straightforward than I expected if you've done any ISO 14001 or third-party audit work. The exam cares about the process — evidence gathering, nonconformance classification, corrective action — and that's pretty standardized across frameworks.