This is the third part of a discussion of how to go through ProSchools’ real estate Prelicense course, pass the license exam with high scores the first time, and graduate from the school sounding like a professional real estate agent.
Another favorite line of questioning by students is: “If I have memorized all of the answers to the quizzes, will I pass?” “If I am getting 90% on all of my quizzes, will I pass?”
For many of these students, the method of study is to, “Just memorize all of the questions in the course.”
Unfortunately, you probably could not memorize questions where you do not understand why an answer is correct. Even if you could, it would not matter. Students who memorize questions will claim the license exam had material they had not seen in the course. Those who study the course material report the opposite – the questions were worded differently, but did ask about material covered in the course.
(Oregon real estate prelicense is an exception. In Oregon, most of the license exam questions have been made available to students, so if a person could memorize all the answers, they should pass. But the Oregon Real Estate Agency made their questions available because their exam bank has over 2,000 questions, and if a student do not learn the information, he would not be able to remember the answers.)
Our quizzes should help to point out areas you do need to master. But, in most states and for most exams, the school does not know what questions are being asked, and if we did know we could not tell. Therefore, you can be assured that the questions provided in school will not cover every exam item. Even when a question does cover an exam item, it will probably be worded differently than the question you will see on the license exam.
To prepare for the license exam, study and review the course material, and use the quizzes to challenge yourself to think about the material. Focus on explanations, instead of just the correct answer. Try to explain to yourself why the correct answer is correct. Also, stop to think about why an answer you thought was correct is in fact false.