If you want to make sure you pass your real estate licensing exam, a real estate practice exam is the way to go. We looked at the most popular paid options and rising stars and decided to review Real Estate Exam Scholar, Brightwood, and Night Before the Exam. These companies covered the range for real estate test takers in terms of price, quality, and convenience. Read on for our comparison and review of these three options, as well as our top recommendations.
Best Real Estate Practice Exam: Real Estate Exam Scholar
We recommend Real Estate Exam Scholar because you get a huge amount of state-specific practice exam materials, six months access, availability in all 50 states, and a money back guarantee, all for about half the price of other leading services.
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Best Practice Exam For Audio Lessons, Live Lessons, and Brokers: Brightwood
If you prefer to learn by audio or live lectures, or are looking for a broker’s practice exam, Brightwood is the way to go. However, Brightwood is more expensive and not available in all states.
$29 | Best overall real estate practice exam | |
$59 to $199, depending on state and package | Best Practice Exam For Audio Lessons, Live Lessons, and Brokers | |
$59.99 | Entertaining quizzes & features |
Best Real Estate Practice Exam: Real Estate Exam Scholar
Real estate exams vary from state to state. That’s why, first and foremost, it’s important to choose a practice exam that’s designed specifically for your state. Real Estate Exam Scholar has editions for all 50 states, which is rare for its low price tag of $29.
Real Estate Exam Scholar gives you 1,000 multiple choice practice questions. The questions are broken up into smaller online quizzes, sorted into different categories. This means you can practice at your own pace and focus more intensely on the areas you need the most improvement in. When you finish a quiz, Exam Scholar scores it and provides a 2-3 sentence explanation for each answer.
In addition to practice questions, Exam Scholar gives you online flashcards to practice definitions, as well as a glossary and printable reference guides.
Available in All 50 States
Real Estate Exam Scholar offers state specific practice exam material for all 50 states. Brightwood offers state specific material for 20 states and Night Before the Exam offers state specific material for 22 states. For people who live in states not covered by Brightwood or Night before the Exam, Real Estate Exam Scholar will not only be the best choice, but their only choice among the real estate practice exams we reviewed.
Money Back Guarantee
Even better, Real Estate Exam Scholar offers a money back guarantee. If you don’t pass your real estate exam on the first try, Real Estate Exam Scholar will refund your money. Brightwood doesn’t offer a money back guarantee at all, and Night Before the Exam offers 90 more days access if you fail, but for double the price of Real Estate Exam Scholar. For most aspiring agents or brokers, spending twice the money for a very similar product simply isn’t worth it.
Six Months Access
Another great feature of Real Estate Exam Scholar is the fact that they give you a full six months access to their practice exams. This can come in very handy especially if you have a situation where you’re facing a long gap between taking your real estate course and taking your exam.
Brightwood offers only 90 days access. Night Before the Exam also offers six months access, but at twice the price there is very little reason to use Night Before the Exam over Real Estate Exam Scholar.
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Best Real Estate Practice Exam for Audio Lessons, Live Lectures, and Brokers: Brightwood
For those who want a more intensive real estate practice exam, Brightwood offers educational resources you won’t find from Real Estate Exam Scholar or Night Before the Exam. In particular, there are audio lessons (available by CD) and lectures you can participate in online or in a classroom setting. Real Estate Exam Scholar doesn’t offer audio lessons at all, and while Night Before the Exam offers animated videos, they don’t offer live webinars or audio lessons.
As one of the leading online educational platforms, Brightwood also has great online practice exam tools. You can take the full practice exam or build custom quizzes: set the number of questions, choose the topics you want to focus on, and Brightwood will build you a custom test.
The downsides to Brightwood are the fact that they don’t offer a money back guarantee and aren’t available in as many states as the other two.
Best Real Estate Practice Exam for Motivation: Night Before the Exam
Night Before the Exam can’t compete with Real Estate Exam Scholar on price, length of access, or money back guarantee. They also don’t offer the live webinars or audio lessons Brightwood does. However, they do offer something that the other two don’t. Night Before the Exam offers fun animated videos and games that help you learn the material. They have crossword puzzles, animations, and other quick games that make studying for your real estate exam less of a chore.
In-Depth Review: Real Estate Exam Scholar vs. Brightwood vs. Night Before the Exam
Price
Let’s face it. Price is a huge concern for aspiring agents because practice examples are just a drop in the bucket. There are a lot of other costs associated with becoming an agent, so wherever you can save helps. To learn more, check out our guide on how to become a real estate agent here. Here’s how the three practice exams stacked up on price.
For some free exam prep options, click here.
State-specific editions
Is the real estate practice exam you’re interested in available in your state? If you choose Real Estate Exam Scholar, then the answer will always be yes.
Real Estate Broker Exam Prep
If you’re about to take your real estate broker’s exam, then you need real estate broker’s exam prep. The topics covered in the real estate broker’s exam are very similar to the ones covered in the agent exam, except more in-depth. Here’s how the three services stacked up for real estate broker’s exam prep.
Length of Access to Practice Exams
Depending on your particular circumstances, you may need a few months between taking your real estate pre-licensing courses and passing your exam. Just remember to check with your state’s division of licensing to make sure you know the time limits between taking your course and taking your exam. Here’s how the three services stacked up for length of access to practice exams.
Question Bank & Additional Course Materials
When preparing for your real estate exam, you want to make sure that you get exposure to the range of topics that will be covered on the exam. In order to do that, it’s good to practice with a large number of questions before test day. Real Estate Exam Scholar and Brightwood have nearly 1,000 questions in each prep course! The size of the question bank for Night Before the Exam varies based on your state.
In addition to the question bank, each company offers additional test taking materials to enhance learning and retention.
Money Back Guarantee?
Having a money back guarantee is definitely a sign that a company is confident in their product. Here is how the three companies stacked up for money back guarantees.
Online Reviews
Online reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, but if there are a very large number of negative or positive reviews then you should take that into consideration before purchasing. Here’s how the three companies stack up for reviews.
Free Real Estate Practice Exams
In addition to the above options, there are also a handful of free real estate practice exam materials. Many of these come from paid exam prep programs that offer free “sample” questions, ranging from 10 to 25 questions. Because these tests are so short, they won’t give a full assessment of your real estate knowledge. They will, however, give you a quick idea of how prepared you are:
- Tests.com has a free 21-question practice exam. Each question represents a different “category” of real estate studies, such as Property Rights or Contract Law. At the end of the test, your score is graded with an explanation of each answer.
- License Professor was the only program I found that offers a free practice exam for EACH STATE (the others are all general national questions). The practice tests are only 10 questions, however, which is pretty limited.
- CRAM offers 160 user-submitted flashcards you can use to study for the test. You can sift through the flashcards online – by random or in order – and click to “flip” and view the answer.
If you need more exam prep or test taking tips, check out our article Real Estate Exam Prep – Ace Your Real Estate Test on The First Try here.
The Bottom Line
Real Estate Exam Scholar offers the best combination of price and features for a real estate practice exam. Brightwood and Night Before the Exam are more expensive, but offer audio lessons and fun features respectively.
Enid Mitchell
I have a question. I am retired and get Social Security. I have money for my basic necessities but not much left over. Sometimes I get a temp assignment, but I cannot count on that income. I believe the time will come when I will get money from a certain issue. I would like to buy a small condo and flip it. Do I need to take real estate classes? I want to be able to talk intelligently to the people that will be interested in purchasing my properties.
Jeremy Marsan
Hi Enid,
In all 50 states, you need to pass an exam in order to earn your real estate license. In most states, you need to take real estate classes as well. We have an article with more information about how to get a real estate license here.
Good luck!
Jeremy