I feel your pain mate. I studied flight planning for months (self studied from an old set of AFT notes), was getting high scores and good times on practice exams. Had a go. 52%. I'll chalk this up to poor exam technique, I tried the 5 markers first strategy, but my first one was insanely difficult and I wasted far too much time on it and was stressed trying to rush the rest of the exam trying to catch up.
Studied some more, practiced the areas I'd scored poorly in, sat it again. 62%. Annoyingly I got a 5 marker wrong, which was the difference between a pass and a fail.
On my third attempt the entire ASPEQ server crashed and everyone got sent home with no result after an hour of waiting. On my third (fourth?) actual attempt I finally passed.
It's not a fair exam, but it can be beaten. Pray for backwards plans, PNR/DP, alpha to bravos and some payload questions because they're free marks. Brush up on your normal ops PNRs, AFT completely glossed over this and it definitely cost me my first attempt.
If you have AFT notes, the APLA syllabus actually explains how to do payload questions, which again they completely neglect to explain for AFPA (too busy teaching you EPR corrections even though it's not examined).
If you're going to do your 5 markers first, manage your time carefully. If you feel yourself getting bogged down, skip the question and come back later. This is a mental game, you need to smash out some easy questions and feel like you're under control. The questions vary enormously in difficulty so if you come across a bull**** one just skip it for later. Good luck.