“How Many Hours do I need to Commit to Each Exam?”

This seems to be a typical question for almost any self-study exam, and rightfully so.  However, the answer is not so simple.  Minimum study time is just a number, if your not using that time productively.  Even though you put in 8 hours today, if 4 hours of that was breaks, you haven’t really put in those 8 hours.  If you put in 4 hours, but 2 out of those 4 hours was spent between talking on MSN and studying, then you haven’t really spent four hours studying.  To many people fail exams and blame the Canadian Securities Institute for failing to prepare them, or for being to hard.  The onus is on you to pass the exam based on your own unique circumstances.  The amount of time needed to understand the concepts per chapter or per volume will vary from person to person.  Therefore, only you will be able to determine what is to little and what is to much.  A good measure of this is to read the LOS statements at the front of the chapter and see how many of them you can answer verbally.  Then, once your complete, check the answers in the back of that chapter.  You can then measure your weak areas and determine how much time you need to spend per chapter.  I would caution against trying to cheat the exam by studying the more heavily weighted items.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, most CSC questions use concepts from a number of chapters, thus testing the breadth of your knowledge.

Personally, I did not keep track of how many hours I put into the exam.  I spent as much time as I needed to finish each chapter, based on the concepts and the amount of useful material in each chapter.  Take your educational background into consideration as well.  The test experience can be stressful to those who have been out of school for some time.  Although the individual circumstances may be unique, the end result is the same.  Adequate preparation is the only way your going to be able to pass this test.

- Steve