After two failed attempts, I passed my AAD certification last Thursday and I'm still kind of in shock. I spent about three months the first two times just reading the official materials and figured that'd be enough. Spoiler: it wasn't. The questions on the actual exam are way more application-based than I expected — they're not just testing whether you memorized definitions.
What finally flipped things for me was switching to an AAD practice test routine instead of passive reading. I was doing two timed practice sets every evening for the last six weeks, then going back and really digging into why I got things wrong. That process alone probably added 15 points to my score. I also found a study guide that organized the content by domain weight, which helped me stop wasting time on low-priority topics.
My final score was 82%, and my target was just to pass. Happy to share my full breakdown or answer questions if anyone is in the middle of studying right now — I know how brutal the wait feels.