PBD
I sat my met exam a couple of months ago. Like you, I found it hard going.
What worked for me was to use the confuser as a pointer to the subjects areas which I really had to know. (As already mentioned, there is a lot of waffle in the Thom book). I then made sure that I had a good understanding of the subject areas questioned in the confuser.
So I didnt learn the answers from the confuser parrot fashion but used it as a way of highlighting what was important and then made sure I had a good understanding of those topics.
Passed with 90%, so it seemed to work for me.
Good luck!