Would it be unreasonable to not study PM and still pass

I think the most difficult part of PM is International Asset Pricing. The other stuff is realtively much easy, I don’t know why you guys are fretting over it. Maybe a couple of extra readings would help you nail down the concepts. Treynor Black is conceptual, not numerical; so isn’t really a worry. Most of the 1st chapter was covered in L-1, the multifactor models should be done after a couple of readings. Only APT is (slightly) something high level. The last chapter is insanely easy and combines all the PM learnt so far. Read it once, come back to it again in a week or so, and voila - I bet you’d nail the concepts.

Great info there on how to give PM limited effective attention. I may well tackle it as you suggest.