So I just got my results back yesterday and I'm still kind of in shock. Passed with a 78, which honestly felt impossible after I bombed my first attempt back in March. That first time I went in way underprepared — I skimmed a few PDFs, felt okay about it, and then got absolutely humbled by the operational security questions. Scored a 61. Not great.
What turned things around for me was actually treating it more seriously the second time. I spent about 6 weeks this round, averaging maybe 90 minutes a day. The biggest change was finding a decent NSA practice test that actually matched the domain weighting. Some free stuff online is pretty outdated, so be careful there. I also worked through a structured NSA study guide that broke down the technical surveillance, counterintelligence, and signals intelligence sections separately instead of trying to learn everything at once.
For anyone else preparing right now, my biggest NSA exam tips: don't neglect the legal frameworks section (I almost did, again), and time yourself on practice questions from day one. What's your timeline looking like? Happy to share more specifics if it helps.