ServiceNow CSA passed with 85% – here's my 6-week breakdown

The Service Catalog questions on my CSA were harder than any practice material I found online. Specific stuff about variable sets and catalog client scripts. Worth spending extra time there.

PDI is a significant step up from CSA. The scripting section requires you to actually know JavaScript, not just recognize it. Give yourself at least 8 weeks if you don't come from a development background.

Thanks for writing this up. I'm at week 2 right now hovering around 68%. The Import Sets section is killing me. Good to know it's a common weak spot and not just me struggling with it.

Congrats. 85% is a strong pass. The ACL section is brutal if you're not deliberate about studying it – I had to redo that whole section twice before it clicked. Your weeks 5-6 breakdown sounds exactly like what I should have done.

This is super helpful, thanks for writing it up. I'm in a similar boat -- working full time and squeezing in study time wherever I can. Honestly the hardest part for me wasn't the material itself, it was just finding consistent blocks of time that weren't already eaten up by work or family stuff. I've been doing 45-minute sessions on my lunch break most days and it's been way more manageable than trying to do two-hour marathon sessions on weekends that I kept canceling anyway.

One thing I didn't expect was how much the hands-on practice helped it stick compared to just reading through documentation. I'd read something and think I understood it, then actually try to configure it in a PDI and realize I had no idea what I was doing. That back-and-forth between the docs and actually clicking around in the instance is what really made things click for me. How strict was the timing on the actual exam? That's the part I'm still nervous about.

Congrats on the 85%, that's a solid score. The thing that made the biggest difference for me was doing the simulator labs instead of just reading through the documentation. I kept thinking I understood concepts until I actually had to configure something from scratch and realized I'd just been skimming. Once I started treating each lab like a mini exam it clicked a lot faster.

Also don't sleep on the flow designer questions. I wasn't expecting them to show up as much as they did and I almost didn't study that section because it felt advanced. Ended up being like 10-15% of what I saw. If you've got a week left I'd carve out at least two days just for that piece.

Thanks for this breakdown, it's exactly what I needed to see right now. I'm about 3 weeks in and just hit 78% on a practice run last night, which felt decent but I know the real thing is harder. Sitting mine in about 10 days so I'm mostly doing timed sets at this point and reviewing anything I'm consistently missing in the ITSM and service catalog sections.

Honestly the weekly structure you laid out is pretty close to what's working for me too. I didn't start with Now Learning and kind of wish I had, I jumped straight into practice questions and had a lot of gaps early on. Feeling more solid now though. Will report back after I sit it.

Thanks for this breakdown, it's really helpful. I'm about 3 weeks into prep right now and just hit 78% on a practice set covering the CMDB and discovery modules, which felt pretty good considering I was totally lost on that stuff a week ago. Still struggling a bit with service catalog configuration but I think it's starting to click.

Planning to sit the real exam in about 10 days if my scores stay consistent. Did you find the actual exam harder than the practice tests, or pretty comparable? I've heard some people say the wording throws them off even when they know the material.