It takes 12 days. You may check a day early. Not sure what you’re asking with the second question....ground school was 2 or 3 really long days into the pm. Remember, you self study before you show up. The way we did it, to get as much exposure as possible, we rode along as the other two trainees flew to watch and learn. We had 4 in the class so we did 8 hours in the sim every single day...that was our choice. You don’t have to. But you’d feel stupid to pass on the sim and then fail....we all rode along. Did that answer your question?