Dear Real Estate Broker Exam

Dear Broker Exam,

I know, I know. You're supposed to be tough. After all, a broker's job is a tough job. It involves - amongst keeping track of all the salespeople in a real estate office that are out showing property & managing mounds of paperwork, not to mention storing them for gasp! three years! - keeping a real estate brokerage out of court. But must you be so damn tough?

On the DRE website, you sound almost like a dream. 200 questions. Two and half hours in the morning, then a break, then two and a half hours in the afternoon. Get 75% right and you can get a license! (Well, unless the FBI doesn't clear your fingerprints. But then, getting a license is the least of your worries, holy moley!) And they're multiple choice. Should be a breeze, right? Wrong.

Even studying for two months and doing innumerable mock tests had not prepared me for your fury. And from the conversations outside the examination room during the break, no one else quite tamed you either. A flurry of flash cards and stacks of study materials flew out of purses and bags with such vigor that examinees forgot to eat. Really, broker exam, you are quite the anorexia-creator.

And now as I reflect on the five hours on my brain being bent every which real estate way and then some, I'm wondering about my results. Four days is an extremely long time to wait. My refrigerator is still covered with sticky notes with supposedly meaningless stuff like "43560" and "5280." But I'm not taking that down just yet. Not just yet.

My dear, dear broker exam... you're finally done. All I know is I couldn't have studied any more. Not a minute more than I did. Now to see if you liked me as much as I liked you!

Sincerely,
Sacramento Real Estate Gal.