What Texas Real Estate Exam Questions Look Like
Applies to both the Sales Agent and Broker exams. The broker version generally tests the same subject areas at a level that assumes supervisory responsibility.
This page describes the questions themselves: how a Texas item is written, which sections the questions are divided into, and what subject matter the Texas half tends to draw on.
Counts, weights and scoring rules are set by the testing program and change without much notice, so this page points you at the current Pearson VUE candidate handbook for Texas for every number rather than quoting one.
Anatomy of a Single Item
Items on the Texas exam are multiple choice. Each one is assembled the same way.
A stem: a short question or an incomplete statement, sometimes wrapped in a one- or two-sentence scenario about a listing, a closing or a licensee's conduct.
Several answer choices, exactly one of which the testing program has keyed as correct. You select it; you do not write anything.
Distractors: the remaining choices, written to be plausible to someone who half-remembers the rule. They are usually wrong for a specific reason, not random.
No partial credit, no penalty for a wrong answer, and no essay or short-answer component. An unanswered item counts the same as an incorrect one.
Occasional arithmetic items, where the numbers are given in the stem and the work is commission, proration, area or loan math done by hand or with a permitted calculator.
The National Half and the Texas Half
The exam is split into a general portion and a Texas portion. General items test principles that hold anywhere in the country: estates and ownership, land use controls, valuation, finance, contract fundamentals, agency theory and the federal fair housing rules.
Texas items test what Texas itself has decided. Same subject, different authority. A question about who may hold an earnest money deposit is a general question about escrow; a question about where a Texas licensee must deposit it, and by when, is a state question.
Whether the two portions are scored separately, whether you can pass one and retake only the other, and whether they are delivered in one sitting are all rules of the Texas program. Confirm them in the current Pearson VUE candidate handbook for Texas before you plan around them.
Where Texas Items Come From
Described qualitatively, because the exact weighting belongs to the testing program and is published there.
License law and the rules of the Texas regulator: who must be licensed, what activity requires one, renewal and education obligations, and what conduct is grounds for discipline.
Agency: how a Texas agency relationship is created and ended, the disclosure that must be made and when, and how the state treats representing more than one party in a transaction.
Required disclosures: the property condition, material fact and relationship disclosures Texas requires, who prepares them, and the timing that makes them effective.
Trust and escrow handling: the state's expectations for client money, recordkeeping and the separation of funds.
Contracts and forms as Texas practice uses them, including which terms the state requires in writing.
Advertising, supervision and office practice: how a Sales Agent works under a broker, and what a Broker is answerable for.
Counts, Pretest Items and Why the Total Moves
Every testing program publishes how many items each portion contains and how many you must answer correctly. That figure is in the current Pearson VUE candidate handbook for Texas, and it is the only place worth trusting for it. A count quoted on a forum, in a review video or on a competitor's blog may be several revisions out of date.
Most programs also embed unscored pretest items. These are candidate questions the program is trying out before it decides whether to put them into the scored pool. They are not identified on screen, they do not affect your score, and they are one reason the number of items you answer can exceed the number you are graded on.
The practical consequence is simple: treat every item as scored, because you cannot tell which are not. It also means an item that strikes you as oddly worded or unusually hard may never count at all, so it is not worth the minutes you would spend arguing with it.
Nobody Sells the Real Questions, So Here Is What We Write
The live item pool is confidential. You agree to that in writing before the exam starts, the testing center enforces it, and the program retires and replaces items to keep it intact. Reproducing questions after a sitting is a violation, not a study tip, so any seller of "actual Texas exam questions," any leaked bank and any brain dump is either fabricated or obtained in a way that can cost you the attempt and the license.
What is legitimately available is the program's own published outline of subject areas. Our Texas questions are written from that outline and from Texas statute and rule. They are original, they are not official exam questions, and we do not present them as such.
They are also written to teach rather than only to score. Each item carries an explanation covering why the keyed answer is right and why the distractors are tempting, because a missed item is only useful if it tells you which rule you actually misread. Results feed PassMap™, which decides what to give you next, and your PassPulse Score, which tracks whether the Texas subject areas are holding up. One purchase is $79, with no subscription, immediate access, a free diagnostic first and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Questions About the Questions
How many questions are on the Texas exam?
Look it up in the current Pearson VUE candidate handbook for Texas. The number is set by the testing program, it differs between the Sales Agent and Broker exams, and it is revised from time to time, so a figure repeated secondhand is not reliable.
Are the questions multiple choice, or is there written work?
Multiple choice throughout. You choose one answer per item. There is no essay, no short answer and no oral component, though some items require arithmetic using figures supplied in the stem.
Do the Texas items just repeat the national ones with local names?
No. They turn on Texas's own law: its licensing and disciplinary rules, its agency and disclosure requirements, its handling of client funds. A candidate who has only studied general principles is genuinely unprepared for that portion.
Do all the questions I answer count toward my score?
Not necessarily. Programs commonly include unscored pretest items that are being evaluated for future use. They are not flagged on screen, so answer every item as though it counts.
Can I practice on the real exam questions?
No, and neither can anyone selling them. The live pool is confidential and protected by the agreement you sign at the testing center. Practice is written to the program's published subject outline instead.
Then how close are practice questions to the real thing?
Close in subject, format and the kind of reasoning required, because both are written to the same published outline. Not identical in wording, and any provider claiming otherwise is describing something it should not have.
Where to go next: Related Texas Pages
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