Hi Jeff,
this question is hard to answer. It depends of your knowledge and experience you already have as an architect.
It took me about three months of preparation until I felt confident to pass the exam (about 2 hours in the evenings). I am into Java/J2EE since 2001, mainly as developer, so I needed to learn a lot about network topologies, legacy technologies etc.
The fact, that you cannot focus on one subject during the preparation makes the
SCEA Part 1 exam a bit different from the other
Java certifications.