dotamasta

Yes, you must be in your final year for L1 and you need to have a 4-years degree for L2. In my region (ex-USSR and Eastern Europe) you normally finish your high school at 16-17 and get bachelors degree by 20-21.

As to whether you need to have experience in finance in order to pass: you can find quite a few people on this forum, who passed L1 (and, I guess, L2 and L3 as well) without any background in finance (neither professional experience, nor a degree), so there's really no reason to feel intimidated by lack of experience.