I got a call today from a former student.  She said, “Karen, I’ve decided that I am going to take your review class.  I tried some of the questions in the exam manual and they are too hard.  I’m not going to do them.  I just want to take the review.”

I told her that she should take the review class AND do the state exam practice questions.  If the questions are easy, you aren’t learning.

Think about weightlifting.  Let’s say that 50 pounds is your comfort zone.  You have a few options.  You can lift 10-pound weights all day long.  That gives you the feeling of accomplishment of having successfully lifted, but it really isn’t helping you get better.  You could also lift 50 pounds.  Then try to lift 55 pounds or maybe even 60 pounds.  That is difficult.  You feel like you aren’t achieving anything because you couldn’t do as many reps.  But that’s what you need to do.

It’s not fun to do the difficult questions.  It’s not fun to get 68% on the practice exams.  But we are often poor judges of when we are learning or improving.  Slower and harder does not mean less productive.  We probably learn more from the difficult questions than the easy questions.

Doing easy questions give us the illusion of mastery.  You feel good about yourself for getting all of the questions right, but you didn’t learn anything.  So focus on doing practice questions, and do all of the practice questions.  If the questions in a particular book are difficult, that exactly the book you need to be studying from.  Then when the state exam comes up, you are ready.  The state exam becomes a 50-pound lift, and you have been doing 55-60 pound lifts in practice.

Please note the neither Karen Climer nor Ron Climer have any affiliation with Climer School if Real Estate or Gold Coast Schools.  Ron Climer sold Climer School of Real Estate in 2014.  Karen Climer now owns Demetree School of Real Estate in Orlando.