Time management during REM exam — how fast are you supposed to go?

Passed REM 6 months ago. Happy to share what I remember.

On the "REM exam" stuff specifically — I found the practice tests here were actually harder than the real exam on those questions. Which was great because going in I felt more prepared than I needed to be.

The time pressure is real though. I came in with maybe 8 minutes to spare and that was after skipping the ones I wasn't sure about and coming back.

Don't try to cram the night before. Seriously. Last-minute stress makes you second-guess things you actually know.

Coming back to this thread — just passed my REM yesterday. Everything about the rem practice test section is accurate. For anyone still studying, the free rem marketing and leasing was the closest thing to the real exam I found.

Coming back to this thread — just passed my REM yesterday. Everything about the rem practice test section is accurate. For anyone still studying, the free rem marketing and leasing was the closest thing to the real exam I found.

Failed first attempt, came back to this thread. The consensus on rem practice test being the make-or-break area is right. Focusing almost exclusively on applied questions this time around.

I felt this. I work full-time and was only getting in maybe 30-45 minutes of study on weeknights, so my practice sessions were always fragmented. What helped me most was doing timed drills on smaller sets — like 20 questions in 20 minutes — before I ever tried a full mock exam. I found a bunch of free rem property management questions that let me do exactly that without having to sit through the whole thing at once.

Once I actually got used to the pace, 63 seconds felt less terrifying. The trick for me was flagging anything that took more than 45 seconds and moving on — you can always come back, and it's way better than burning time and missing the easy ones at the end. Didn't master it on my first practice run either, so don't stress it yet.

Failed the REM on my first attempt and time was absolutely the thing that killed me. I kept getting stuck on the property management financial analysis questions — the ones where you're calculating NOI or figuring out operating expense ratios — because I'd convince myself I was one step away from getting it right. Meanwhile the clock was draining. I finished with maybe 8 questions unanswered, which is brutal when you're that close.

What I changed for round two: I set a hard rule that anything taking more than 75 seconds gets flagged and skipped, no exceptions. The REM questions on leasing, owner relations, and maintenance contracts are usually faster for me, so banking time there let me circle back to the financials with a little breathing room. I also stopped second-guessing answers I felt confident on — going back and changing things cost me probably 4-5 minutes the first time and I talked myself out of two correct answers.

Honestly the bigger shift was just doing more timed practice under real conditions instead of reviewing concepts in isolation. Knowing the material isn't the same as being able to retrieve it under pressure. Once I started treating every practice session like the actual test — no pausing, no looking things up mid-question — my pacing got a lot more natural. Passed the second time with about 6 minutes left.