Salesforce Certified Platform Developer Exam (formerly 'platform developer I')

Hi all,

I have attempted the "Salesforce Certified Platform Developer" exam twice now, and I cannot pass it (results are down below). Whilst I have spent a great deal of time making use of "focus on force" to get exposure to a question bank of sorts, I also made sure that I read Salesforce official docs at every opportunity (for almost every question to get a better grasp of the wider concepts) as well as making use of AI's insofar as to simplify complicated concepts and the like in the hope that I could really get an in-depth an understanding as possible.

However, this hasn't been good enough, and I can't push past 51%, and I don't know what else I can do. I feel like doing more questions is not going to help, and while Gemini's suggestion was to actually develop with Salesforce in order to get hands-on experience, I feel like this won't give me the exposure I need given the tough and often obscure line of questions in this tough exam.

I have thought maybe it would be best to study from the source, and use Trailblazer directly - what do you all think about this?

Is there anyone out there who has passed this exam who could offer me their opinion? Your advice would be appreciated not only by me, but also any other examinees looking for assistance, and who might come into contact with this thread in the future.

Thank you

_______

Second attempt results:

Developer Fundamentals: 63%

Process Automation and Logic: 35%

User Interface: 67%

Testing, Debugging, and Deployment: 42%

First Attempt results:

Developer Fundamentals: 56%

Process Automation and Logic: 47%

User Interface: 60%

Testing, Debugging, and Deployment: 42%