Failed the DA — what to do differently the second time

Late to this thread but wanted to add — the exam prep section trips up more people than any other part. If you're scoring below 72% there in practice, treat it as your only focus for at least a week before moving on. Breadth at the expense of depth in that area is a common mistake.

Bookmarking this. I'm still in the early stages of DA prep and threads like this are way more useful than generic study guides. The specifics about practice test are particularly helpful — that's the section I've been avoiding.

Congrats on passing! Can I ask — how many questions did the actual exam have compared to what the practice tests simulate? I've seen different numbers online and want to calibrate my timing during practice.

I failed the DA on my first go too, and the thing that actually moved the needle was accepting that I didn't have big blocks of time to study. I work full time. By the time I'm home I'm wiped. So I stopped pretending I'd sit down for two hours and instead did short bursts, like 20 minutes on my lunch break and another chunk after dinner. Study guide was my weak spot as well, and what helped was drilling questions over and over instead of just rereading notes. I leaned a lot on free data analyst data mining sets because I could squeeze a few in whenever, on my phone, waiting for stuff.

Honestly the consistency mattered more than the hours. Ten minutes a day beats one panicked weekend. You're not behind, you just need a rhythm that fits your actual life. Keep at it.

I failed the DA on my first try too, and honestly the thing that killed me was treating study guide review like a checkbox. I'd read it once, feel like I "got it," and move on. That wasn't enough. Second time around I forced myself to actually use it, not just read it. After every practice section I went back to the relevant part of the guide and reworked the questions I missed until I could explain why the right answer was right, out loud, without looking. Slower, but it stuck.

The other thing I changed was spacing it out. First attempt I crammed the last two weeks and burned out. This time I did shorter sessions over a longer stretch and kept a running list of the topics that kept tripping me up, then hit those harder near the end. If study guide is your weak spot, don't just reread it. Drill it, get stuff wrong on purpose, and figure out the gap. You're closer than it feels right now.

I failed too, back in March, and retook it six weeks later. The thing that changed for me was treating every commute and lunch break as study time instead of waiting for big chunks that never came. I'm a project manager with two kids, so "I'll study this weekend" was basically a lie I kept telling myself. What actually worked was 20 minutes on the bus, a few practice questions during lunch, and one longer session on Sunday mornings before everyone woke up. It adds up faster than you'd think.

On the content side, if data governance tripped you up like it did me, don't skip it again. I used the da/questions/data ethics and governance section to drill those concepts specifically and it was worth it. The second time I went in feeling like I actually understood why those rules exist, not just memorizing them. You've already done the hard part of sitting for it once, so you know exactly what the test feels like. That's a real advantage going back in.

I retook mine after failing the first time and the thing that made the biggest difference was stopping myself from just reading the right answer after getting something wrong. Like, that's not enough. You have to dig into why each of the wrong options is wrong, because the DA loves to throw in answers that sound right if you're fuzzy on the details.

For the study guide sections specifically, I'd read a passage, close it, then try to explain it back to myself out loud. Sounds kind of embarrassing but it immediately showed me what I actually understood versus what I thought I understood. The gaps were honestly shocking at first. It's more work upfront but you'll stop second-guessing yourself on test day once you've done it enough times.

I was in your exact spot six months ago and honestly came this close to just giving up and telling myself the certification wasn't worth it. What turned it around for me was stopping the broad review and drilling into the specific question sets I kept bombing. The da/questions/data ethics and governance 3 set wrecked me the first time but once I actually understood why I was getting things wrong instead of just retaking it, something clicked.

Second attempt I passed with room to spare. Don't just restudy everything, that's what got you here. Figure out the two or three areas where your logic is actually off, not just where you ran out of time, and fix those. It's slower but it's the only thing that actually worked for me.