Passed First Try Today at Oakland, CA
I got tips from this community when I started studying for the salesperson exam, so I wanted to give back some of the things I did.
I don't have any real estate background and never took any classes for it. I had to start from scratch. I ended up choosing Allied School after reading some threads regarding schools here, because I thought Allied focused on the CA test and had a paper textbook. Since I had zero knowledge about the real estate industry, I went through all three textbooks, every page, but only once.
After that, I started using any free material (YouTube or random questions) to just check how much I know. At this point, probably less than 50% correct. Allied provided the Insider Guide, which contains a bunch of sample questions, and CompuCram. I also used ChatGPT or Google AI (they often give different answers) to get detailed explanations on practice questions I had issues with. After going through practice questions, I started seeing the same questions. In hindsight, I did not comprehend well at all during the textbooks, but I started to come around during repetitive practice questions. Still, I believe I couldn't have reached the level I did if I had skipped the readings.
If I had some real estate experience or background, I probably would have studied by doing practice questions repeatedly and made sure to know each answer choice, not only the correct one.
A few days before the exam, I had confidence I would pass because I was scoring 80–90% on any random practice exams. I think I passed with a pretty high score, but I came across some questions I had seen somewhere before, as well as some answers I had never seen.
The room at Oakland is cold. The staff said the room temperature was low on purpose. It might have helped me stay awake, but my hands were freezing. I highly recommend wearing layers.