Pearson VUE Real Estate Practice Exam
Sitting a Pearson VUE exam soon? Its national portion is 80 scored items across 8 content areas, and 42 of the 80 ask you to apply or analyze a rule rather than recall it. Start with the 10 sample questions, which are answered further down, then sit the full 80-question national test when you want a score that means something.
A seller receives an offer and returns it with the price raised by $5,000. The original offer is now:
This practice exam is a study aid, not the real exam. Our questions are written by us to match the published content outline. They are not actual exam questions, no score here predicts a pass, and this site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by PSI, Pearson VUE, ARELLO, any state real estate commission, or any government agency. Your state commission and your candidate handbook are the only authoritative sources.
The outline: 80 scored items across 8 content areas
Pearson VUE publishes scored item counts rather than percentages, so you can budget your practice in questions. The current outline is dated effective April 1, 2025. Its own words:
The national/general portion of the real estate exam is made up of eighty (80) scored items, which are distributed as noted in the following content outline.
| # | Content area | Salesperson | Share | Broker | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Real property characteristics, legal descriptions, and property use | 11 | 14% | 10 | 13% |
| II | Forms of ownership, transfer, and recording of title | 9 | 11% | 8 | 10% |
| III | Property value and appraisal | 11 | 14% | 10 | 13% |
| IV | Real estate contracts and agency | 16 | 20% | 15 | 19% |
| V | Real estate practice | 10 | 13% | 12 | 15% |
| VI | Property disclosures and environmental issues | 9 | 11% | 9 | 11% |
| VII | Financing and settlement | 7 | 9% | 8 | 10% |
| VIII | Real estate math calculations | 7 | 9% | 8 | 10% |
| Total | 80 | 100% | 80 | 100% |
Contracts and agency is the largest area on both exams at 16 items for salespeople and 15 for brokers. That is one question in five, so it is where limited practice time goes first. The broker exam shifts weight toward real estate practice, which rises from 10 items to 12.
The outline also states that the national portion carries five unscored pretest items on top of the 80. They are not labeled, so the one question that looks unlike anything you studied may not count.
Two constants are the same in every Pearson VUE handbook we opened, and the handbooks say they are not supplied at the desk: 43,560 square feet per acre and 5,280 feet per mile. Proration items state inside the question whether to use a 360-day or 365-day year and which party owns the closing day, so there is no house convention to learn. can you use a calculator on the real estate exam covers what you are allowed to compute with, which is not the same everywhere.
Knowledge, application, analysis: how the items are written
Every item on the exam is classified into one of three cognitive levels, and the outline prints the counts per area. PSI publishes no equivalent. In Pearson VUE's words:
Every test item is classified into one of three categories: knowledge, application, or analysis. A knowledge item requires candidates to recall specific facts or definitions. An application item requires candidates to use their knowledge and apply it to a situation. An analysis item requires candidates to use their knowledge and examine a fact pattern in order to draw a conclusion or make a decision.
| Content area | Salesperson | Broker | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recall | Apply | Analyze | Recall | Apply | Analyze | |
| I. Real property characteristics, legal descriptions, and property use | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| II. Forms of ownership, transfer, and recording of title | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| III. Property value and appraisal | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| IV. Real estate contracts and agency | 7 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 6 |
| V. Real estate practice | 5 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 2 |
| VI. Property disclosures and environmental issues | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| VII. Financing and settlement | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| VIII. Real estate math calculations | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| Total | 38 | 26 | 16 | 21 | 32 | 27 |
42 of the 80 salesperson items are application or analysis, not recall. On the broker exam recall falls to 21 of 80, so 59 items require you to do something with what you know. And real estate math calculations is 7 of 7 application or analysis: there is not one recall item in it.
This is why candidates who know the material still fail. Memorizing definitions can earn you the 38 recall items and not one more. The other 42 present a short fact pattern about named people and ask which rule governs it, and recognizing a term inside a story with two irrelevant details is a different skill from knowing what it means. Flashcards cover less than half the exam. Timed question practice covers the rest: real estate exam questions breaks down the formats the exam uses, and real estate exam simulator runs a full-length attempt under the clock.
Why our topic list has 11 areas and this one has 8
If you have been studying to a table with 11 content areas and percentages, that is PSI's outline, not this one. This site uses it as its internal taxonomy because it is the finer-grained set: Pearson VUE's 8 areas can be composed out of it, and the reverse does not work. Pearson VUE has no standalone agency, land use, transfer of title or property management area. The full test above is drawn across the 11 areas, and this is where each of our quizzes lands on the Pearson VUE outline.
| Our content area | Weight here | Where it sits on the Pearson VUE outline |
|---|---|---|
| Contracts practice questions | 19% | Area IV, shared with agency. The two subjects are one 16-item area, not two. |
| Agency practice questions | 13% | No standalone area. Folded into area IV alongside contracts. |
| Practice of real estate practice questions | 12% | Area V, real estate practice. Fair housing sits inside it at V.C, 3 items. |
| Property ownership practice questions | 10% | Split. Characteristics and legal descriptions are area I; forms of ownership are area II. |
| Financing practice questions | 10% | Area VII, financing and settlement. |
| Valuation practice questions | 8% | Area III, property value and appraisal. |
| Property disclosures practice questions | 7% | Area VI, property disclosures and environmental issues. |
| Real estate math (calculations) practice questions | 7% | Area VIII, real estate math calculations. |
| Transfer of title practice questions | 6% | No standalone area. Subsection II.B, 4 items. |
| Land use controls practice questions | 5% | No standalone area. Subsection I.D, public and private land use controls and encumbrances, 3 items. |
| Property management practice questions | 3% | No standalone area. Subsection V.B.3 of real estate practice, plus one math item at VIII.G. |
The two outlines are not commensurable and must never be averaged. A blended table looks authoritative and matches no real exam. If your state uses Pearson VUE, the 8-area item counts are your budget, and the third column tells you which area each quiz feeds. what is on the real estate exam has the PSI side in full.
The outline in your handbook may be five years out of date
The April 1, 2025 outline replaced one effective June 1, 2020, and the item counts genuinely moved. Handbook refresh cycles are per state, so some current handbooks still print the old version. Oklahoma's regulator-hosted handbook, dated March 2024, is one of them.
| Content area | Sales 2020 | Sales now | Broker 2020 | Broker now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I. Real property characteristics, legal descriptions, and property use | 9 | 11 | 9 | 10 |
| II. Forms of ownership, transfer, and recording of title | 8 | 9 | 8 | 8 |
| III. Property value and appraisal | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |
| IV. Real estate contracts and agency | 16 | 16 | 17 | 15 |
| V. Real estate practice | 14 | 10 | 13 | 12 |
| VI. Property disclosures and environmental issues | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 |
| VII. Financing and settlement | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 |
| VIII. Real estate math calculations | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
| Total | 80 | 80 | 80 | 80 |
The largest single move is real estate practice on the salesperson exam, down from 14 items to 10. Property disclosures went the other way, up from 8 to 9. Both totals still land on 80, which is why the change is easy to miss.
Check the date printed above the content outline in your own handbook. If it says June 1, 2020, the weights you are studying to are superseded. The quicker tell: the June 1, 2020 version published no cognitive-level breakdown at all. If your handbook has knowledge, application and analysis columns, it is the current one.
One oddity we cannot resolve. Texas's January 2026 handbook prints "Effective: March 1, 2025" while Alabama, Montana and Pennsylvania print "Effective: April 1, 2025". The item counts and cognitive splits under both dates are identical. A staggered per-state rollout of one revision is the likeliest explanation, but that is an inference, so both dates are reported here.
Read the explanations on the ones you got right as well. A lucky guess and knowing the rule look identical on a score report.
10 sample Pearson VUE questions, answered
Every question above with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read the explanations for the ones you answered correctly too. A lucky guess and knowing the rule look identical on a score report. These are sample questions from our larger bank.
1. A seller receives an offer and returns it with the price raised by $5,000. The original offer is now:
Why: A counteroffer rejects the original offer and replaces it. The buyer is free to walk away, and the seller cannot revive the first offer by changing his mind.
2. A clause states, "Time is of the essence in every provision of this agreement." Its practical effect is that:
Why: Such a clause means deadlines become strict, and even a short delay in performance can be a material breach. Saying deadlines become advisory, since courts allow a reasonable grace period describes the default rule the clause is designed to displace.
3. Which of the following is NOT one of the fiduciary duties an agent owes a client?
Why: Fiduciary duties are obedience, loyalty, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting and reasonable care. An agent guarantees effort and honesty, never a market outcome. Promising an appraisal result would itself risk a misrepresentation claim.
4. Which of the following is NOT one of the four antitrust violations most tested on the licensing exam?
Why: The four are price fixing, market allocation, group boycott and tie-in arrangements. Puffing is exaggerated sales talk, a misrepresentation issue, not an antitrust one.
5. A residential tenant bolts custom shelving to the living-room wall of the leased apartment. At the end of the lease the shelving is most likely:
Why: The trade fixture exception reaches only what a tenant annexes to carry on a business, so it does not cover a residential tenant's improvements. Shelving bolted to the wall of a home is an ordinary fixture and stays with the premises unless the lease provides otherwise.
6. A developer finances 20 lots under a single blanket mortgage. The provision that lets individual lots be sold free of that lien is the:
Why: A partial release (or "release") clause frees one parcel at a time as the developer pays down the blanket loan. Defeasance would release the entire lien, and only at final payoff of the whole debt.
7. With the same NOI, an investor requires a higher capitalization rate. What happens to indicated value under direct capitalization?
Why: Value equals NOI divided by the capitalization rate. Increasing the denominator while holding NOI constant reduces the indicated value.
8. A property manager is leasing a unit in a 1962 building to a family with young children. Regarding the lead-based paint rule, the manager must:
Why: Lessees must receive the disclosure, the pamphlet, and the required lease attachment, but the 10-day opportunity to inspect applies to purchasers rather than tenants. Waivers of liability for lead hazards are not permitted.
9. A home listed at $450,000 sells for 4% below list. The listing agent’s brokerage keeps half of a 5.5% commission. What does the listing brokerage receive?
Why: Sale price is $450,000 × 0.96 = $432,000. Commission is $432,000 × 0.055 = $23,760; half is $11,880. Using the list price instead of the sale price gives $12,375.
10. All of the following transfer title involuntarily EXCEPT:
Why: Only "A conveyance by general warranty deed at a negotiated closing" happens by the choice of the owner, making it voluntary alienation. Foreclosure, condemnation, and occupancy ripening into title all strip the owner of title without consent.
Where to go next
Booking, ID rules, the calculator policy, scoring and remote testing are on the Pearson VUE real estate examguide, state by state. Your state portion is on your own state's practice exam page.