A 14-Week Arizona Real Estate Salesperson (AZ-RES) Study Plan That Fits a Real Schedule
In short
Plan on about 100 hours of study across 13 weeks, plus a review week. The load starts at six and a half hours a week and settles at eight, with one ten-hour week. Since January 2026 Arizona has split the exam into a General paper and a State paper; this plan covers the General material first.
How long the prep takes
A hundred hours of preparation is the realistic figure for the Arizona Real Estate Salesperson exam, spread across thirteen weeks of new material with a fourteenth for review.
Arizona's 90 hours of approved prelicensure education is a separate legal requirement. It happens before you can book a seat. It is not part of the 100, so if you haven't done the course yet, your real timeline starts after it.
The hours are also nowhere near evenly spread. Practice of Real Estate takes 32 of them, General Principles of Agency 16, and Contracts 15. Those three account for 63 of the 100 hours. The remaining 37 are split across eight smaller areas, none larger than eight hours.
Those hours are Only Ever's recommended study time, built around how long each subject takes to learn properly. They are not the exam's question weights. Pearson VUE publishes those separately, and they tell a different story. Real Estate Contracts and Agency is the biggest General-exam area at 16 of the 80 scored questions. Two more areas follow at 11 questions each: Real Property Characteristics, and Property Value and Appraisal. Real Estate Math Calculations is 7 questions — about one in eleven, and worth planning for.
Week by week
General-exam material comes first. The Arizona-specific content that dominates the State paper waits until the end, so you can sit the General exam before you start it.
Weeks 1 and 2 cover Property Ownership, Land Use Controls, and Transfer of Title — 13 hours across the three. They interlock: what you own, what the government and your HOA can do about it, and how it changes hands. Learn them as one story.
Real and personal property →
estates and tenancies →
liens, easements and encumbrances →
deeds and recording.
Money and math fill weeks 3 and 4, 14 hours over Valuation and Market Analysis, Financing, and Real Estate Calculations. Keep the math beside the financing. Prorations and loan-to-value make more sense while the loan concepts are fresh. Memorize 43,560 square feet per acre and 5,280 feet per mile well before exam day, because neither is provided at the test center.
Contracts takes weeks 5 and 6, 15 hours across the two. Get valid, void, voidable, and unenforceable exactly right. The exam tests those four through fact patterns rather than definitions, so drill them on scenarios until the wording of a question stops mattering.
Agency runs weeks 7 and 8, 16 hours — eight a week, and the point where the plan starts to bite. It's the largest single subject on the General paper and the one that most rewards straight memorization: fiduciary duties, how agency is created, how it terminates, who is owed what.
Week 9 clears the last of the General material: 10 hours across Property Disclosures, plus Leasing and Property Management. It's the heaviest single week in the plan, and it leaves every General-exam subject covered — so book the General paper for the end of it.
Weeks 10 to 13 are Practice of Real Estate, 32 hours at eight a week. It covers ARS Title 32, the Commissioner's Rules, trust accounts, advertising, and Fair Housing — a third of your total study time, and most of what the 60-question State paper asks about.
Week 14 is review. No new material, only mixed practice questions across all eleven areas — these hours sit on top of the 100. Book the State paper for the end of it, or hold both papers until week 14 and take them back to back for the $75 combo rate.
If you have less time (or more)
Eight weeks means about 12.5 hours a week. That's a lot, but it works if you protect the Contracts, Agency, and Practice of Real Estate blocks and compress everything around them. Cut second-pass review before you cut first-pass learning on those three; they're 63% of the hours for a reason.
Twenty weeks brings it down to five hours a week, and the risk flips. Early material fades before exam day. If you stretch the plan, add a 30-minute retrieval session each week on whatever you covered a month ago, and treat that as non-negotiable.
The six-hour Arizona Contract Writing Course sits outside the 100 hours too, alongside the prelicensure course. You'll need it before you can apply for the license, and neither can be compressed.
Common questions
How many questions are on the Arizona Real Estate Salesperson exam? Two exams, booked separately since January 2026. The General paper has 80 scored questions plus 5 unscored pretest items, so 85 on screen. The State paper has 60 scored plus 5 pretest, so 65 on screen.
How long should I study? Plan on 100 hours of exam prep. Arizona separately requires 90 hours of approved prelicensure education before you can sit, and a six-hour Contract Writing Course before you can apply for the license.
What is the passing score? 75% of the scored questions. The two papers are scored separately, so you need 75% on each.
How long do I get? 150 minutes for the General exam and 90 minutes for the State exam. The clock does not stop if you take a break.
What is the most heavily weighted section? On the General exam it's Real Estate Contracts and Agency at 16 of 80 scored questions. The State exam is led by Contracts at 8 of 60, followed by four areas at 6 questions each: Arizona Agency, Reasonable Skill and Care, Licensee Duties and Obligations, and Licensee Competencies and Duties.
Are calculators allowed? Yes, if it's silent, hand-held, nonprinting, and has no A–Z keypad.
Every study guide and practice question for this exam is free on Only Ever, including the AI-generated question sets other providers put behind a subscription. Try the free practice questions and see which of the eleven areas needs your next study block.