Okay so I've been lurking here for months and I feel like I owe it to this community to share what finally got me through. Failed my first attempt back in February by about 8 points, which was honestly crushing. I'd been studying for six weeks straight and thought I was ready. Turns out I had some serious gaps in MongoDB aggregation pipelines and Express middleware patterns that I completely underestimated.
For round two I completely restructured my approach. I found a solid MEAN practice test that actually mimicked the real exam format — timed sections, weighted question types, the whole thing. Did at least two full mocks per week and tracked every wrong answer in a spreadsheet. My study guide this time focused heavily on Node.js event loop mechanics and Angular's change detection, which I'd basically glossed over before.
Anyone else taking this in the next month or two? Happy to share my question bank and the exam tips that made the biggest difference for me. Just want to pay it forward. Total study time second round was probably 65 hours over 8 weeks.