Flunk-Cost Fallacy

I don’t really like talking about my successes, and I like talking about my failures even less, but as I just passed the Alteryx Advanced Certification Exam on my second try a week ago, I thought I’d blog about it while the memory is still fresh. I found preparing for it to be really difficult, more difficult than the test itself, in fact, and mostly because failing the first time–by less than two points!–got in my head.

The first time I took it, I hadn’t really prepared at all, and I even took it expecting to fail, as I just wanted to get an understanding of how difficult it was and come up with a more relevant/targeted study plan. I also entered the exam telling myself that this first attempt would be a good low-stakes way to get started with studying in earnest, as I’d been too nervous to even study for it the first time, just because I was so overwhelmed by how much content it would cover and therefore what to prioritize; I’d initially set myself the goal of passing it before the end of July (first attempt was the 1st of August).

It was with this reminder that this first attempt was a low-stakes way to get my feet wet that I clicked ‘Finish’ to submit my exam with just over 20 minutes to spare–and learned how close I’d gotten to the passing score of 80. Needless to say, I was disappointed in myself and spent a lot of time thinking about the what-could’ve-beens, such as:

  • Regretting not studying (despite taking it the first time to study)
  • Wishing I’d read the questions more carefully (I later realized I took the average of something, when it should’ve been the sum)
  • Wondering why I hadn’t done more weekly challenges before this (even though I’d wanted to take it first to see what it was like before figuring out which weekly challenges I needed to tackle)

After flunking, I wanted to take it again and pass this time, of course–or at least, take it again the week after to gauge the progress I’d made after some more studying, and keep studying and retaking it until I passed, since it’d keep me focused on studying and I’d be able to track my progress. But I also kept thinking of other things I wanted to get done, so I kept telling myself, okay, I’ll get back to studying after I work on A, after I finish B, etc. Before I knew it, a few weeks had gone by, and I hadn’t retaken the Advanced exam again–or studied for it since.

What I had done, however, in addition to the other projects I wanted to work on, was worry about passing the Advanced in the back of my head. Eventually, all that worry grew and grew, until I felt like I didn’t know anything about Alteryx by the time I was finally able to motivate myself to resume preparing for it again (which definitely didn’t help), especially after I realized I wasn’t really going from 78% to a passing score, but from 0%.

That’s what I’m calling the flunk-cost fallacy; because I’d already started working on this goal to pass the Advanced, because I’d already put in the time to study for it, I felt like I couldn’t move on from it until after I achieved it. However, because I knew I needed to take a break from it before trying again, I needed to find something else to do in the meantime–but I kept finding more and more things to do, all while worrying about the Advanced, when it would’ve been nice to fully redirect my attention to something else and come back to preparing for the Advanced refreshed. Thus I never really achieved a meaningful break from worrying about the Advanced and was feeling really stressed as I started preparing for it again, not anticipating how hard it was to stay focused on studying with stress also on my mind—my subconscious’ way of punishing myself for not passing the first time, I suppose.

Anyway, here's how I prepared before retaking it:

  • Watched Alteryx's own video series on the Advanced Certification Exam, paying extra attention to the Reporting Tools, as I had never used them before
  • Completed a few Weekly Challenges of the Basic difficulty level that were specifically for preparing for the Advanced, and specifically in the domains I scored particularly low on the first time, like Advanced Prep/Parsing (still don't think I did enough before taking it, so if you're not in a rush, do some more challenges first, and when you’re sure you’ve done enough… do some more)
  • Studied the One Tool Examples of tools that I wasn't really familiar with, such as the Pearson's and Spearman's Correlation Tools
  • Experimented with tools that had tripped me up during the first attempt, like the Multi-Row Formula Tool and all of the Spatial Tools

Going into it the second time, I was so nervous I didn't sleep the night before, as I was worried that I would fail again (even though failing isn't a big deal), due to not studying enough for it or not studying effectively enough. However, even though I failed the first time, I did accomplish my original objective, which was to get an idea of how much studying I needed to do in targeted areas. It also didn’t help that I got the same practical I’d gotten on my first attempt and realized the reason I’d gotten it wrong the first time because I’d taken the average of something, instead of the sum, so I could have passed the first time if I’d taken the time to go over the question again…

But what’s done is done, and this whole process was a good exercise in learning how to keep going after the first failure. The great thing about Alteryx is that you can retake it a week after taking it, giving you time to study before trying again. This allows you to see your incremental progress, so if I were to do it again, I would try not to worry as much about the retake (and possible subsequent attempts), despite knowing my schedule was about to get much busier / I wouldn’t have much time to devote to it soon. It definitely would've helped my headspace to not think about failing the first time, since I was freaking out the whole time I was retaking it, too.

But you know what? I’m happy I finally achieved it, and while it took me a little longer to achieve the goal (as my original plan had been to pass before the end of July), it’s just as well—I ended up passing the Advanced exactly six months after I passed the Core (which I’d only just started learning to use that same week). Apologies for this entry being more ramble-y than usual, but it’s a good reminder to myself, as I continue documenting my journey in data analytics, that this is all still very new to me, and I’m still—and always will be—learning. Hopefully, I’ll be able to look back on these entries in the future, particularly this one, and see how much I’ve grown over time :)

In conclusion, to sum up my tips for the Alteryx Advanced Certification Exam:

  • Study Alteryx's own videos on the certification, and try out the things they demo in the videos with the accompanying datasets
  • Take the test to study, while also understanding you don't have to pass on your first try
  • Be familiar with RegEx, of course, but do process of elimination of the choices before looking at the entire expression to save yourself some time (for example, if one of the choices includes characters that aren't what you're looking for, you can eliminate that choice right away)
  • Study the One Tool Examples for tools you're not familiar with
  • I personally preferred to skip the practicals to do the multiple choice questions first, within the first hour of the exam, before returning to the practicals; time management is key, as I spent too long on the multiple choice and had only 45 minutes for the practicals during my retake
  • Weekly Challenges are fantastic for practice for the practical questions–time yourself as you solve them, and try to limit your time to 15 minutes per practical
  • I also found the practicals similar to the Weekly Challenges, in that you need to think about what the output needs to look like and identify how it needs to look in the intermediate stages before you break it down even further
  • For tools I didn’t have access to, like the Frequency Table Tool from the Data Investigation Palette, I searched up YouTube videos to see how they worked and what the configuration window looked like
  • Read questions very carefully
  • The DateTime specifiers are useful to have open, as are regex101.com, the One Tool Examples, any notes you may have taken while watching Alteryx's videos, and any particularly tricky workflows/Weekly Challenges you may have worked on in the past that use a tool in a certain way (especially if documented beforehand)
  • Get more comfortable with spatial because it'll show up quite a bit
  • If all else fails, use the Text Input Tool for RegEx
  • Don't punish yourself for failing by constantly thinking about what you could’ve done differently, and remember that it’s all a learning experience :)
Author:
Vivian Ng
Powered by The Information Lab
1st Floor, 25 Watling Street, London, EC4M 9BR
Subscribe
to our Newsletter
Get the lastest news about The Data School and application tips
Subscribe now
© 2025 The Information Lab