The key to do well or at least well enough to warrant a pass is that you need to know the concepts by heart in order to apply them. Does it really come down to the draw of the luck? To a certain degree yes, but at the same time whatever material you are using should have covered the topic on the sim.
I was weak on sims on my first take on FAR. Stronger on MCQ(2/5 was strong and the rest was comparable) and weaker on sims for my score report. I've search the forums a lot on this and it seems that Gleim is what got people over the hump with weaker on sims. You can search it yourself if you don't believe me.
So the very next day after I found out I failed because of sims. I bought Gleim, pounded the sims/MCQ bank to death and that was what I felt got me over the hump. Did the same thing with AUD, which was my first and only attempt…same result. I'll have to wait until September to see if it worked with REG, but so far 2/2 with this method.
Another thing is abuse the AL as much as possible. I can't count how many times it probably saved my ass.
AUD - 82
BEC - 80
FAR - 81
REG - 82
FAR - 74 first attempt
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