Be well, and study hard
OP, to answer your first question....
So, I get back from a call... guy is having an MI on the field at a youth sporting event. Small town, everyone knows someone who knows everyone. Know what I mean.
So, I show up. (HX, CALL ALS, ASA, Hi-Flow o2, pack 'n go)
Well, one of my kids is on his team, his wife is friends with my wife... get the picture. If I were not an EMT, and not involved in his call we would have just discussed it like everyone else, made speculations, etc... but being involved it puts the added stress on me, as I cannot discuss it with my family and my family has to alter their behavior as anything they say will be taken as something I told them, which of course I could not tell them anything.
Or...
I get back from a call, where someone meeting my oldest daughters exact demographics cut her wrists and took a bottle of pills. Same school, everything. I am not sure if they know each other but it hits home, and affects the family.
To answer your second question, I studied on average 90 minutes a day. 45 minutes at lunch, and 45 minutes in the evening. I will point out though that I did this prior to the class as well as during the class. Before Basic, and Intermediate classes even started I completed a text and workbook.
Some will say you do not need to study much, and that it is all easy common sense but a lot of people fail the test too. You do not see them on here posting about their failure, because as a rule the people who fail the test do not do independent study, and it is my guess that the people who choose to come to sites like this DO independent study.
Good luck, and be well

not because it is in the book, because you are a person who deserves to be well.