How I organized my AD0-E123 study plan, topic-by-topic, sharing my approach

Most people preparing for AD0-E123 treat it like a reading exam. Go through the AEM docs, understand Dispatcher, OSGi, Sling Models, feel prepared and show up. I did exactly that and walked out confused on a third of the questions.

The exam does not test whether you read the material. It is testing whether you can apply it inside a scenario. A developer has this setup, this constraint, this requirement that layer underneath the question is what catches most people off guard.

What actually helped was organizing study time by topic weight, not by what felt comfortable. AEM Development is 40% of the exam. Configurations 26%, Environment Maintenance 22%, Build and Deployment 12%. I spent two weeks on AEM Development alone before touching anything else.

Scenario-based practice is what built real confidence. Not just "what does a Sling Model do" but "given this setup and constraint, which approach fits and why." I used ITExamsTopics specifically for this; their question framing matched the decision-making style the actual exam uses, not just definitions.

If you have covered the material and still feel uncertain, it is probably not a knowledge gap. It is a practice gap. That one is a lot easier to fix.

What topic are you struggling with most?