I still can't believe how much more difficult this exam is compared to the rest. I had passed all my previous exams first attempt self studying, leaving Flight Planning last. The one subject I actually went up to Maroochydore to sit the AFT class for, which I highly recommend, yet failed the exam miserably. I may not be the absolute smartest of people but I'm not incredibly stupid either, and put the time and effort into these exams. Averaging 94% in CPL exams and 92% in ATPL's (Up until sitting Flight Planning).
Anyways just wanted to have a bit of a winge first off, but as for tips and tricks, well I would still go ahead and recommend Nathan Higgins' notes from AFT; his notes had gotten me a sound pass in every other ATPL subject via the distance learning course, so I guess his FP notes are giving me as good of a chance as any. Going up to his class was good, but really there's not anything you learn up there that you can't simply read out of his folder, if I could do it again I would save the money and simply use his notes at home, but I enjoy self studying as suppose to a class room.
Also with buying his notes you get the cyber exams package with it, his cyber exams seemed close to the CASA exam, next time I will sit them more than once each before attempting the exam again. I highly recommend his cyber exams for FP.
Also like others have said, highlight smartly in the POH, especially edges of pages, it's as good as having tags. There's also nothing to say you can't highlight routes and distances on ERC charts. Highlighting distances on different, close by routes, can ensure you add up the correct distances for the right route, and also help ensure that you don't miss any. This is perfectly safe and legal!
For averaging tracks, draw a line from where you are, to where you are going (ie. from your location or waypoint, to the top of descent), measure this track from the half way point roughly (Somewhere where you can easily align your protractor along the grid), and remember to take off mag variation, this is so much quicker and easier than calculating the average track, or eyeballing it and guessing
Before deciding where to put in weather subdivisions, have a quick look at how similar the weather sectors are at your altitude, the closer they are, the more inclined you should be to average, there is no harm in jamming three or four different sectors into an average figure, if either they are all roughly equal distances apart, or if they are all relatively close in figures, this saves a lot of time. If averagin say two sectors (X and Y), and X is half as long as Y, then it's simply (Y+Y+X)/3
Remember time is your enemy in this exam, and having a sound understanding of how to average figures quickly and accurately in different scenarios is a must!
C'mon people, let's beat this exam! I'm sure CASA have deliberately errected this wall in front of our otherwise happy little lives, just to **** us, and I sure as anything get no joy out of letting them win.