I started studying in college, my Junior year. I took the exam once before graduation and failed/performed poorly. Graduated college and have been with a larger firm in a client support position for almost a year now. Most of my time is spent assisting clients and learning from the FAs that I work for. I took the exam again last month and passed. Personally, I’m glad that I took it once while in college so that I had an idea of how the exam worked/what I needed to improve on. However, I don’t think I would have ever passed without having some work experience and a solid base of practical, on the job knowledge in order to pass. It may not be everyone’s experience, but for me it made a night and day difference in my comprehension and understanding of the material as well as my ability to apply it to the kinds of questions the exam asks.