So I failed my first attempt back in March with a 62% and honestly felt pretty defeated. I'd been working as a junior network engineer for about two years and figured I knew enough Palo Alto basics to wing it. Big mistake. The exam hits way harder on Zone-Based Policy and App-ID logic than I expected.
Second time around I committed to a real schedule — about 6 weeks, roughly 90 minutes a night. The thing that moved the needle most was grinding through a solid PCNSA practice test bank until I was consistently hitting 80%+ before I even thought about rebooking. I also spent a full weekend just on Security Profiles and NAT rules because those tripped me up constantly.
For anyone starting out: don't skip the Palo Alto EDU-110 course notes even if you have hands-on experience. There's a lot of GUI-specific workflow stuff the exam loves to test. What resources are people using for the study guide portion? Curious if the Beacon platform is worth the time or if there are better options.