So I've been sitting on this post for a week because I wanted to make sure the score was real before I said anything. Passed the STC with a 78 last Thursday, which honestly felt like winning the lottery after bombing it twice. The first time I went in basically cold — figured I had enough on-the-job experience to wing it. Wrong. Second attempt I bought a random study guide off Amazon that felt about five years out of date and scored a 63. Not great.
What finally clicked was being way more systematic about it. I spent about six weeks this time, roughly an hour a day on weekdays, and used a combination of the official handbook and an STC practice test bank that actually reflected the current exam format. The practice questions were the biggest thing — not just drilling them but actually reading the explanations for every wrong answer. That changed how I retained the material completely.
Happy to share more specifics about which topics tripped me up (technical writing standards and audience analysis sections were brutal for me). What's everyone else finding hardest?