Test-taking Tip: Reading All the Answers

If you're going to take the real estate exam soon, be warned: during the exam, you may feel hurried and want to pounce on the first answer choice that sounds right. (The same thing can happen when you take Rockwell's practice exams.) Much of the time, the first answer that sounds right is in fact right. Yet the hurried approach of skipping or skimming when reading answer options will inevitably mean getting a few questions wrong. Can you afford that?

Patio furnitureHere's an example from one of our practice real estate exams. A question asks if the homebuyer should get the tenant's lawn furniture in a sale. Check out the first two answer options:

A. No, because the garden furniture was the tenant's real property B. No, because the seller can't include the tenant's personal property in the deal

If you feel pressed for time or overconfident, you may read only the first part of answer A: "No, because the garden furniture was the tenant's…" Hey, that sounds right, you might think. You choose A and move on. "I've got 60 questions left to go—no time to waste!"

Well, haste makes waste, as they say; a quick glance at the first answer can make it seem correct, but Answer B is the correct choice. Lawn furniture isn't real property. Answer B correctly states that it's personal property.

So there's our test-taking tip for today: Read all the answers thoroughly before picking one. Skipping (or merely skimming over) answers isn't worth the handful of minutes saved.