A Board Exam
March 2012, out of the 4,801 who took the Licensure Examination for Real Estate Brokers; PRC announces that 3,192 passed. Luckily I was once part of this 3,192. I believe that this blog would be so timely for the upcoming 2015 Licensure Exams. Back then I was still less than a year in Sales and the Real Estate Industry, but I realized if this would be the industry and career that I would like to pursue and get rich with, I might as well risk my chances, there’s nothing to lose anyway, so when I got the opportunity and the resources to avail a review package with NAR (National Association of Realtors) and with the encouragement of my mentor Mr. Chris Java, I take chances.
January 2012, review lectures started. I’m very certain with myself I will fell asleep during classes since I was like that since High School so what I did was to overdose myself with coffee each time I feel sleepy, many times I palpitated but it’s okay, because I really couldn’t relate with the topic. I remember they’re discussing about encroachment and I asked my friend; “ano yun may ipis yung lupa?” that’s how naive we were having few knowledge about the industry compared to our grown up classmates. It’s funny.
Currently people would ask me if the exam was hard, I would often answer; if you are prepared it’s not hard, and if your goal is just to pass and not to topnotch. However, it’s totally time consuming, in a sense that I’ve lost my Job after the process. Because the challenge here is how you will set your mind and body for it since you will have to think about your quota and sales deficit if you are connected as in-house sales in a certain developer. I lost my Job because I wasn’t able to sell that time however it led me to where I am right now, in this days there are a lot of ways to provide time to study. So just do it on your convenience or talk to your superior I know they would understand.
I’m true to myself that I’m not smart, I never had any honors in school, I would always fail my math and I extend my bedtime in classrooms, no wonder I spend 5 years in college instead of 4. Our professors would always favor those who would pass the board exams for, Accountancy, Engineering and Nursing. I view board exams as something out of my league, something I would never pass.
Because of this assessment I needed to come up with a strategy, a game plan to pass the exam, unlike in college it’s impossible to bring cheat notes (kodigo) and its 400 items so how on earth would I make one. So I asked my board passer friends for some tips that helped them passed the exam. They would say that you should pray hard, have a healthy lifestyle, eat right, don’t drink, sleep well and many more of course since I’m so desperate to pass I followed all of this but aside from praying so hard, there’s this one tip that I know I can do well which is to read and read and read the handouts.
So February 2012, review lectures ended and we filed our application in PRC (Professional Regulation Commission) and this it, we will just wait for March 18 the date of the exam. I didn’t appreciate much in the lectures and there are some areas I really couldn’t relate with so I told myself I will make it up with the self-study. My mentor advised me to sort my hand-outs based on the coverage of the exams, so it would be easy for me to review. The coverage of exam last 2012 is illustrated below;
GENERAL/FUNDAMENTALS
Fundamentals of Property Ownership
Code of Ethics and Responsibilities
Legal Requirements for Real Estate Service (R.A. 9646/IRR)
Real Estate Laws and Taxation (Agri Law, CARPER, R.A. No. 7160/8242 etc.)
SPECIAL AND TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
Subdivision Development (PD 957, BP 220, RA 7279 etc.)
Condominium Concepts and other types of Real Estate Holdings
Legal Aspect of Sale, Mortgage and Lease
Documentation and Registration
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Real Estate Brokerage Practice
Real Estate Finance and Economics
Urban and Land Use
Planning, Development and Zoning
Basic Principles of Ecology
Basic Appraisal for Real Estate Brokers
These were the 3 categories wherein I sorted my handouts, each category I will read and reread each night, from work I will go home early and take a nap and wake up at night to have dinner and start reading and just stop only when the words in the handouts are not sinking in anymore. Another habit that I formulated is to read the short reviewer for the terminologies and definition of terms three times a day, when I wake up, after lunch and before I sleep, consistently consuming it like multivitamins.
My board passer friends told me that memorization won’t work since you might forget some during the day of the exams and I’m not good with it anyway so this is what I came up with, a consistent reading habit. I didn’t try to analyze and understand the terminologies too much for there are some that I really couldn’t relate specially the section about laws, I just read and reread and I remember there was a time that my jaw was aching because I was reading the words aloud at night but it didn’t stop me and I continued with my habit and my prayers.
In this manner, I didn’t have information overload each night I just read enough. The words would be consumed by my body gradually and repeatedly. I continued with this habit from February 2012, up to March 16th. Because of this habit I reached a state that even I close my eyes I can still utter the words I’m reading, perhaps the words were consumed naturally by my body.
A day before the exam I stopped reading, this was another advice from my friend so that our minds will be relaxed, so we visited UE the school where we will have the exams, ate like as if tomorrow is our execution day and just had fun, bought groceries like chocolates and C2’s it’s another advice to have energy during the exam. So I had an early dinner, I planned to sleep early since we are required to be there at 5:30AM. But something hit me; I woke up around 12MN and no matter what I do, no matter how many times I roll around my bed, I wasn’t able to go back to sleep again. Maybe this is a sign of anxiety and I just prayed to God saying it’s all up to you now. Please guide me.
So I went to UE and to my shock there are a lot of examinees falling in line waiting for the gates to open by 6AM. I got worried because while in line most of them are still reading their handouts and I asked myself if the relaxation I did yesterday was right, another sign of anxiety but I just prayed to God to Guide me.
Now after I found my room and seat number, I’m all set for the exam however, the test papers from the other parts of the Philippines were delivered late so we couldn’t start the exams just yet. I got worried that my energy wouldn’t last that long because I’m awake since 12MN so I tried to take a nap but I couldn’t. We were able to start our exam around 9AM.
The exams begin, Test 1 General/Fundamentals the result of the reading seemed to be working, since I sorted out my handouts for each category and read it per day, what happened is that I can choose what memory I will use based on how I sorted it, most of it seemed to be pictographic memories of the words I read so for each questions, it seemed to be a familiar picture you have seen before so with just 3 words you read from the questions you would easily know the answer. However I got problems with the relevant dates I got confused on how they rumble the questions like the implementation, date imposed etc.
Out of all the Three Category, Test 2 has the shortest handouts I have sorted compared for Test 1 and Test, same thing happened but with this one I am more familiar since I practice this first hand like selling condos and documentation and registration, however you would need to prepare for situational questions something like; if Ms. Pauline Luna has a lot here, how will you sell it? Back then there were easy questions also which you can answer even if you didn’t review for boards like how many Chinese zodiacs and what element is the Real Estate industry, is it wind, water, fire or earth.
There are test taking strategies my passer friends advised me also but aside from elimination (crossing out the wrong answers), the first thing or answer in your mind, if you don’t know the answer it’s letter C, leave the hard ones first, a strategy helped me well, the answers that you are not sure with or questions you really don’t know, must not exceed 20 items. If you do so you will know you have a fighting chance of passing.
Around 6PM, the last and the longest part of the exam is set to start the bloody 200 item Test 3, be careful with this part since this is composed of 50% of the exam, here you must only have 40 items which you are not sure about. Some of the questions from the previous parts were included here too so consider it as blessings if you encounter one, at this rate my energy is almost fading but I must finish this and fight for it for the last time. So I just pray for Guidance.
My mentor told me that there are subjective questions wherein the right answer will be based on the answers of the majority of the examinees. You can leave this first and answer the questions you are 100% sure first, in this way it will be less stressful and you can save a lot of time and energy where you can use for harder questions like analytical questions and some computations. After the exams I lie down with UE’s open grounds then after taking a little rest, I tried to catch a mass near home in San Juan, however I kept falling asleep because fatigue and each time I do I told God; it’s up to you now.
Try to understand not to memorize, use both your heart and mind during the whole process and most of all; just do what you can do then submit everything to your God.
