For some people, this coming Saturday represents nothing more than the first Saturday in June. For others, it's the culmination of months spent telling friends "I can't come out, I have to study for the CFA" and allowing personal hygiene to fall by the wayside. And here's the kicker: for about 50% of the smelly, it won't even have been worth it.

On the first Saturday in June, more than 170,000 investment management professionals in 91 countries will attempt to climb what has been called the “Mount Everest of Finance” by taking a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam—a six-hour battery of tests with rigorous questions covering topics like quantitative analysis, accounting and ethics...passing is not an easy task. Usually, more than half of all those taking any level of the exam fail. They then have to wait as much as a full year to take the same level again. Candidates can spend hundreds of hours over the course of several months studying for just one test.

If you're feeling calm, cool, collected, and ready to show the CFA Institute who's boss, congratulations. If on a scale of 1-10, 1 being "I have zero jitters whatsoever about this thing" and 10 being "I'm losing my god damn mind," you're somewhere between 12 and 17, feel free to let out anxieties here. We're listening.

170,000 people are about to take Wall Street's toughest test [Yahoo]