How To Study and PASS The NMLS EXAM on Your First Attempt
In this article, we will cover and discuss how to study and pass the NMLS exam on your first attempt. I have read all guides on how to study and pass the NMLS exam on your first attempt. I have listened to everyone who advised me on how to study and pass the NMLS exam. Alright everyone, today I am a very happy man.
If you have been following my journey, you should know why, and that is I passed my NMLS Exam with a 90%! It is now my turn and duty to show new loan officer recruits on how to study and pass the NMLS on their first attempt. It was very helpful in listening to all my mentors and reading blogs about how to study and pass the NMLS exam.
After 2.5 hours of sitting in that desk chair, I hit the Exit Exam and Submit Answers button, I was shaking as I waited for that score to pop up on the screen. Once it did, I jumped out of my seat and through a fist pumped into the air as this was a huge accomplishment for me. There was A LOT of hard work that brought me to this point, and I am going to detail it in this blog. In the following paragraphs, we will be covering how to study and pass the NMLS Exam on your first attempt.
First Step On How To Study And Pass The NMLS Exam
In case you didn’t read my earlier blogs, I took the 2-week online course given through Mortgage Educators. This is a self-paced class where you are responsible for getting all the contact viewed and completed in a 14-day period. This is set up into 10 chapters of which there are anywhere from 14-20 5-minute videos that you watch and follow along on PowerPoint slides supplied to you in PDF form.
After every 6-10 videos there is a small quiz and every chapter has a homework assignment that consists of going on a message board to answer a few essay questions that have to do with the topics you just covered. There wasn’t much stress to get this done as you only have to average 1-2 hours per day.
The one downfall I can see with this class is that there is so much data to go over that they can’t possibly cover everything that you need to prepare for the test. All in all, it was an economical class if you are self-motivated, however, if you are better in a classroom setting, this might not be the best option for you. I found myself opening the laptop every night before bed to get this done.
How To Start Studying For The Exam
You can start by understanding the mortgage process. Below is a video you can watch.
The other good thing about my Mortgage Educators course is it came with over 900 study questions with UST components in quiz form that you could do as many times as possible. These tests were broken into multiple sections: TRID (TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures), Federal Law, Ethics, General Mortgage Knowledge, Loan Origination Activities, and UST. I was probably a little slow getting started after I finished my 2-week class and this might have hindered my initial studying.
How Long Do You Have To Take Your NMLS Test?
I finished the class about 3 days before Christmas and with the holidays, I didn’t start studying until the first week of January. Before I started taking quizzes, I created a spreadsheet that listed every quiz I had access to and I was going to track my correct answers and the cumulative percentage of all the tests I was going to take.
Knowing that I needed a 75% or better, there isn’t a point in taking these quizzes if you don’t have goals to meet and are able to track your progress. Yes, this might sound like overkill to some of you, but believe me, it is worth it as you can determine which subjects need more work than others.
The Key on How To Study and PASS The NMLS EXAM on Your First Attempt
Practice Exams Is Key To Passing Your NMLS EXAM, to be honest, I didn’t do that well on the first handful of tests I took as the data was a little removed from my mind and I was truly freaked out after my scores of 100 questions were 68%. I knew that I needed to buckle down and get a daily plan in place to cover more content than I was currently covering with 30-40 questions per day.
After thinking about this from a strategic standpoint, I decided that it would be best if I did one quiz from each section in a rotating format so that I got a broad range of questions covered. This would ensure that no topic would be forgotten and all the areas of the test would stay fresh in my mind.
How Long Is The NMLS Test?
I also knew that I needed to ramp up the quantity I was covering, and I made the dedication to get through 80-120 questions on a daily basis. The final strategy I implemented was reviewing every question I got wrong to burn into my brain what the proper answer was if I saw it in the future.
After a couple of days of this strategy, my cumulative percentage had climbed to 77%, and all of a sudden I was in a “Passing” position. This might be satisfying for some, but not for me. I still had 400+ questions in my quizzes and I was motivated to get through as much as I could. About a week ago I finally got through all the quizzes and my cumulative percentage finished at 80.8%.
NMLS Exam Prep Test Questions
Another key on how to study and pass the NMLS exam on your first attempt is having prep test questions. I was beginning to feel more confident by the day, but I still wanted another resource to study from and I reached out to my good friend Gustan Cho at Gustan Cho Associates and asked if he had any materials that would be helpful for me, and he came through in a major way.
He was able to get me 2 separate 100-question practice quizzes as well as a 160+ slide PowerPoint PDF “Refresher Course.” I immediately took Exam #1 and scored an 80/100 followed by Exam #2 and scored an 81/100.
NMLS Exam Passing Score
These scores fell right in line with where I was on my study quizzes. These might be “Passing” but it was still pretty close to that 75% needed to pass, and if I messed up on a handful of questions on test day I would be sunk. I took the time over the next couple of days to go over all the quizzes I took previously that I didn’t get an 80% or better on and I retook them to scores of 90%+. Now my confidence was building by the minute and I finished up by retaking the 100-question exams with scores of 91% and 88% respectively. Now I got it, I am going to pass this test!
What To Expect on Test Day of NMLS Exam
The night before the test I made sure I got plenty of rest, 9.5 hours to be exact. I woke up, got dressed, and headed downstairs to have my coffee I skimmed over some incorrect answers from the practice exams and I was off to the Prometric testing facility. Upon arrival, I checked in, locked up everything into a supplied locker, and waited for my cubicle to be ready. After a 15-minute wait, I was called back where I was wanted, had my picture taken, was signed in, and brought to my computer.
The Atmosphere of the NMLS Test Center
The cubicle had noise-canceling headphones to wear, 1 laminated scratch pad, 2 markers, and a calculator, and after the instructions on the computer, my 190 minutes began. Now if I can offer 1 bit of advice for the questions that show up on the exam, read them carefully. The verbiage is very ambiguous and if you skim over it, you will not get what they are looking for: “All of the following are exempt EXCEPT” or “Which of the following are NOT true regarding…”
What To Expect on The Actual NMLS Exam at the Test Center
Over the course of the first 2 hours, I made it through all 125 questions, but I had marked 47 of those questions to revisit and make sure I made the best guess possible. I will be honest, some questions I really did make educated guesses on as it was a topic not covered by the class or practice tests.
How Difficult Are The Questions on the NMLS Exam?
If you are going to make a guess, you can easily determine 2 answers that don’t make much sense or are so outlandish, it’d be silly. This leaves you with 2 answers, from here, go with your gut and don’t second guess yourself. After I was through everything 1 last time, I had about 37 minutes left and I hit the Exit Exam to submit my answers. This is when I was truly surprised that I had scored a 90%, my hard work had PAID OFF.
How To Study and Pass the NMLS EXAM Advice
In conclusion on how to study and pass the NMLS exam, it may seem like some of my study habits were overkill, but if you plan on passing this test the first time through you need to drill yourself on these topics over and over again. 1 bit of advice I would like to share is to make sure you know your federal regulations and all the details that support them, this includes TILA, RESPA, ECOA, HMDA, HOEPA, FACTA, FCRA, and Disclosures.
How Hard Is The NMLS EXAM?
35% of the test covers these topics and honestly a lot of the exam references this in one way or another. Finally, I wouldn’t take too much time going over calculations of monthly payments, escrows, and interest rates as there may have been 3 questions like this on the test. However, do go over your QM, NQM, and housing ratios as there was an abundance of questions using these subjects as well. Finally, when it comes down to it, don’t stress yourself out too much. If you follow this guide on how to study and pass the NMLS exam and put in the hard work, you will be rewarded, it’s as simple as that. Good luck!
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