Mine was 6 hours long.... with a DE no less. It was actually longer than my CFI initial at the local FSDO.
My ride was apparently pretty atypical in its length. The DE was one of the nicest I've ever worked with, but he was just very long. Covered the PTS and then some.
Besides the typical jaunt through the aircraft logbooks (he *didn't* ask to see evidence of the IFR-specific inspections to my surprise), we covered the IFR regs (all of them I think...), approach plates and enroute charts, weather, flight instruments (right down to which way the gyros were pointed in the AI, DG and TC), primary and supporting instruments for basic attitude flying, aeromedical factors (concentrating on spatial disorientation and hypoxia), the law of primacy again from the FOI, flight plan forms and alternates, and the maneuver lesson. I chose to teach him VOR holds and he actually let me go on for about 25 minutes, then spent another 10 or 15 giving me some alternative ways to teach them. Total Time, Oral: 3 hours.
In the air we covered all the basic attitude stuff: constant rate climbs and descents, constant airspeed climbs and descents, timed compass turns, steep turns and unusual attitudes. He had me "teach" him the unsual attitudes and that lesson went on for about 15 minutes or so. Then we headed off to do an ILS which turned out to be a circle-to-land approach, but the controller was nice enough to turn me on to the localizer 7 miles from the outer marker. We landed on that one and took a short break then went back out and did a partial panel VOR approach with a miss. And it was true partial panel with my AI and DG "failing" before I had intercepted the final approach course. So I did timed compass turns all the way in. Then we were vectored out so I could do my VOR hold. After that I just had to get him back to our departure airport without killing him which I did. Total Time, Flight: 2.4
Just as an aside, the winds at the surface were 18G26 and at altitude were about 40 knots. I almost decided not to do the flying part, but figured I might as well give it a shot since I have to teach in that stuff anyway. It seemed to work out okay, but I didn't quite get my VOR hold to work out the way I wanted to on the first lap. I had more wind correction than usual, but not quite enough. I explained what I'd do on the second lap and that satisfied him.
So that's my CFII checkride. Most people I talked to indicated theirs were about 1/2 that long and were a piece of cake. Mine wasn't really difficult, just looooonnnnnnggggg...
Carolyn