collywolly, when you say 'if this has been done before' did your search not produce your very own identical question in an identical thread on the matter that was answered not two weeks ago ?
http://www.pprune.org/professional-p...-ir-tk-uk.html
Were the answers there not satisfactory ? or are you now asking about groundschool as well as exams?might have been better to post the query in your existing thread if so to avoid confusion. Anyhow, the answer to groundschool is that everyone buys the gleim cpl question book and studies it regardless of where they are taking the exam. The advice remains the same - the exam is much easier to pass once you have done some flying in the usa. Also the written is trivial in comparison to the oral. If you are prepared for the oral, the written is merely 90 mins at a computer the week before the checkride.