Yes, 500 in my opinion…don’t listen to all the pundits who come on here bragging that they only spent 3 months and 200 hours studying. Seems like they talk just to boost their ego. If you are planning for a June exam start studying in January or before if possible.
@PalacioHill…I have read many stories on here where people have failed Level 1 two or three times and are now charterholders. Now that may not be the majority (as I also read somewhere that only 8% who actually start, finish) but it seems it can be done. Maybe some people just need to train their brains to handle the workload. The amount of material can be a shock to some…it was for me.
It looks like you don’t have a background in finance. Master L1. There are many similar topics in L2, so if you own the material in L1, you will waste less time understanding readings in L2. Don’t try to get by with just passing.
It depends on your background (as some people have already pointed out if you did a degree in finance and/or work in the industry already some of the material will be repetition).
It depends on your reading speed, strategy and comprehension. If you strategy is to read every single page of the curriculum you need to plough through roughly 3000 pages. If your reading speed is 10 pages an hour you will spend 300 hours just reading the material let alone time for question practise and revision. If you decide to go with a set of abbreviated study notes for at least parts of the curriculum and/or read faster it will take less time.
So in short if you are new to the material and/or need to read slowly for comprehension you may well need more than 300 hours to have a good chance at passing the test. A bit of strategy may help reduce the amount of time needed, but it’s probably a safer bet to spend a little bit too much time and increase your chance of passing, rather than spending a bit to little and risk having to go through the entire ordeal again.
This is not a stupid comment or non-sense. It is very true. This is not meant to be a troll. Its just a reality check. People seem to be very optimistic when it comes to these exams, but the reality is that the majority do not get through the 3 exams. The exact figures escape me but I think its around only 20% make it through. The reality is that Level I is just the “Entrance Exam”. If you struggle to pass level I, the likelyhood of passing levels II and III is very small. You shouldn’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole.