Advice re: the CTA

I've just finished (and hopefully passed) my ATT exams and am eyeing up the CTA now cautiously due to the horror stories people tell me about how hard it is.

Basically I've just had a glance at a paper and was suprised how I could see how to answer most of the questions even now (ie before I even looked at a CTA text book). So is the CTA similar to the ATT in question complexity (obviously more the upper end) but you have to really get the points to get marks (as in, if stating an item was ignored for IHT due to it being outside the UK would get you 2 marks in the ATT, the CTA would give you most of the first mark)?

I'm also a full member of the ACCA and was hoping the finals of that would be of comparable difficulty to the CTA, but I'm told it is much harder. Is that just the person I spoke to trying to big up the CTA or is there really such a leap from ACCA finals to CTA? I was told the ACCA was comparable to a Masters, what does that make the CTA?!?

Lastly now that you can do them in bits, what would you say is the manageable happy medium? Is it two exams every 6 months, one every 6 months? I have now till December free, then can't do anything till after June 2010 (my wedding, surely once I get through that the CTA will be a doddle!), then the rest of my life free (until the patter of tiny feet), so logically 2 in December and 2 in December seems best, but if I fail in December 2009 it will be a year till the resits.

Any and all advice gratefully receieved!
Thomas Peterson