Can't use stackoverflow on a certification exam.
Production programming as opposed to academic programming is about writing as little of your own code as possible. Because we all suck at writing code :-)
Certifications are another matter. I’ve found the ones worth having take a career to prep for and the ones your boss tells you to get can be passed by studying a cheat sheet online for a couple hours.
Based on the labs I've done, and other materials, I'd say it's NOT a "cheat sheet" exam.
It's really sorting out syntax and structures that fries my brain. Code never "sticks" with me, and I'm in a constant state of bootstrapping, for lack of a better term.
Are you taking the cert to get a job or is your job making you get the cert?
Getting your employer to pay for training and the actual cert is definitely the way to go. I have always discouraged anyone looking to get the cert first
There's a lot to the exam I get, simply from experience. I'm getting slaughtered on the Azure CLI stuff since I simply cannot get the syntax to stick, no matter how many times I re-run through the labs.
Do you feel you're not getting it or that you're not getting it fast enough? The latter can evolve into the former. And perpetuate the anxiety loop.
It is just exercising your short term memory that hurts your brain and causes all that stress and you’ll get better. Soon all those layers of abstraction and the way they relate will be more muscle memory. Like driving. You’ll “glance at your mirrors” when merging and it won’t seem so stressful. It just takes time and practice
Also, stackoverflow is man pages for programmers