You've finished your pre-licensing course, you have an exam date (or you're about to pick one), and you have about a month. That's enough time to pass — if you use it deliberately. Most people who struggle don't lack hours; they spend those hours rereading notes instead of practicing retrieval, and they leave the state portion and the math for the last weekend.
This plan fixes that. It assumes roughly 60–90 minutes on weekdays and a longer session on weekends. Adjust the volume to your schedule, but keep the sequence.
Key takeaways
- Start with a diagnostic, not a review. Your weak areas decide your schedule.
- Use spaced review: short, repeated sessions beat long cram sessions for terms and rules.
- Practice math every week, in small doses, from day one.
- Give the state portion its own block of time. In many states it's scored separately, and you can pass national but fail state.
- Take at least three full, timed mock exams before test day and review every miss.
Before day 1: know your exam
Pull up your state's candidate handbook and write down four things: the number of questions, the time limit, the passing score, and whether the national and state portions are scored separately. These vary more than people expect. A few examples from our state exam facts:
- Texas: 120 questions (80 national, 40 state), 240 minutes, and you need 56/80 on national and 28/40 on state, scored separately (Pearson VUE handbook).
- New Jersey: 110 questions (80 national, 30 state), 240 minutes, 70% overall (77 of 110) on a single combined score (PSI bulletin).
- California: 150 questions, 180 minutes, 70% (105 of 150), administered by the state (CA DRE).
- New York: 75 questions, 90 minutes, 70%, administered by the state (NY DOS).
Whether portions are scored separately changes your strategy. If they are, a strong national score can't rescue a weak state score. Find your state's details on its state page — for example, Texas or California — before you start.
Week 1: Diagnose and build the foundation
Goal: find out what you don't know, and get the core vocabulary into long-term memory.
Day 1: Take a diagnostic
Take a full-length or near full-length practice test, timed, before you review anything. Don't study for it. The point is an honest baseline.
Afterward, sort your misses into topic buckets — property ownership, agency, contracts, financing, valuation, practice, math, and state law are a reasonable starting set. Rank them worst to best. That list is your schedule for the next three weeks.
Days 2–6: Core concepts, weakest first
Each day, pick one or two of your weakest topic areas and:
- Review the material briefly (20–30 minutes), focusing on definitions and rules.
- Answer 25–40 practice questions on that topic only.
- Read the explanation for every question you missed and every question you guessed right.
- Add any term you hesitated on to a flashcard deck.
Every day: 10–15 minutes of flashcards
Start a daily flashcard habit now. Short, frequent sessions — the principle behind spaced repetition — are far more effective for vocabulary than a single long session. Terms you know move to longer intervals; terms you miss come back sooner.
Day 7: Math warm-up and light review
Spend this session on the math formulas you'll use most: commission, percentage of a whole, area, proration basics, and loan-to-value. Work 15–20 problems slowly, writing out every step.
Week 2: Deepen and add the state portion
Goal: close the biggest gaps from your diagnostic and start the state law block.
Days 8–11: Remaining national topics
Continue working through your ranked list. By the end of this stretch, you should have done focused practice on every national topic at least once.
Pay special attention to topics that generate the most confusing questions:
- Agency: fiduciary duties, disclosure, dual agency, and the difference between a client and a customer.
- Contracts: valid, void, voidable, and unenforceable; contingencies; options.
- Fair housing: protected classes, steering, blockbusting, redlining, and the exemptions.
- Financing: loan types, points, amortization, and the basics of federal disclosure rules.
Days 12–13: Begin the state portion
State law is where many otherwise well-prepared candidates lose their exam. It's memorization-heavy and specific to where you're testing: license categories, commission and regulator powers, disclosure requirements, escrow and trust-account rules, advertising rules, and continuing education.
Start with your state's exam content outline, which is usually in the candidate handbook. Turn every line of it into a question you can answer from memory.
Day 14: First full mock exam
Take a full, timed mock exam under real conditions — no phone, no notes, one sitting. Score each portion separately, even if your state doesn't. Compare to your diagnostic.
Week 3: Mock exams and targeted repair
Goal: build exam stamina and convert near-misses into reliable points.
Days 15–18: Targeted repair
Go back to your mock exam results. For each wrong answer, identify why you missed it:
- Didn't know it — a content gap. Review and drill.
- Knew it but misread — a reading problem. Slow down on key words like except, not, most, and first.
- Narrowed to two and picked wrong — a reasoning gap. Read the explanation for the correct answer and the distractor you chose.
Spend about two-thirds of each session on your weakest bucket and one-third on mixed review.
Every other day: math sets
Keep the math sharp with short sets of 10–15 mixed problems. Include proration, net-to-seller, and investment problems once you're comfortable with the basics. Speed comes from familiarity, not from doing 100 problems the night before.
Day 19: State law deep session
Spend a full session on state law only: practice questions, flashcards, and the content outline. If your state scores the portions separately, this deserves extra weight.
Day 21: Second full mock exam
Same rules as before. You're looking for steady improvement and, more importantly, fewer misses from reading errors.
Week 4: Polish, rest, and test
Goal: arrive confident and rested, not exhausted.
Days 22–25: Mixed review
Switch to mixed-topic practice sets. Real exam questions jump between subjects, and you need to be comfortable switching gears. Keep flashcards going daily, and run one more state-law-only session.
Day 26: Third full mock exam
This is your dress rehearsal. Note your pacing: how many minutes per question, and how much time you have left at the end. If you're running short, practice flagging tough questions and returning to them.
Days 27–28: Final repair
Review your mock results one more time, with emphasis on any topic where you're still inconsistent. Revisit your personal list of "words I always confuse."
Day 29: Light review only
Flashcards, a short quiz, and your notes on test-day logistics. Confirm your ID requirements and arrival time in the candidate handbook. Stop early.
Day 30: Test day
Eat, arrive early, and read every question completely. If you get stuck, make your best choice, flag it, and move on. Come back if time allows.
Common mistakes this plan avoids
- Rereading instead of practicing. Recognizing a concept on a page is not the same as recalling it under time pressure.
- Saving math for the end. Math anxiety grows when you avoid it. Small weekly doses keep it manageable.
- Treating the state portion as an afterthought. It's often a separate pass/fail hurdle.
- Skipping explanations. Every missed question is a lesson only if you understand why the right answer is right.
- Cramming the night before. Sleep does more for recall than one more hour of review.
Put the plan to work
Start today with your diagnostic: take a free practice test, or go straight to your state's version — for example, the Texas practice test or the New Jersey practice test. Build your daily review habit with flashcards, keep the glossary open for terms that trip you up, and use the exam simulator for your three full mocks. Not sure when to schedule your test? The license timeline calculator helps you work backward from your target date, and every REEX Prep plan includes the full simulator and flashcard library.