If you did not pass
Your result notice is the most useful document in this process
Candidates who pass are never told their score. You were given your actual score plus a percentage for every subject area, which is genuine diagnostic information almost nobody else in the process receives. Used properly, it tells you exactly where to spend the next set of study hours.
Do not reapply before your results arrive
Failure to follow these instructions will cause your exam record to be flagged and your test results to be withheld while additional fees are assessed. This is the single most expensive procedural mistake available at this stage, and it is entirely avoidable: wait for the result notice, then file.
The diagnosis worksheet
Enter the percentages from your RE 418A. The worksheet ranks your areas by weighted loss rather than by raw percentage, which is a different ordering and a more useful one.
Your RE 418A percentages
Copy each subject area percentage from your result notice. Leave any blank if you do not have it, and the worksheet will work with what you give it.
Enter at least one percentage
The worksheet ranks your areas by weighted loss, meaning points of the whole examination given up in each. With all seven entered it can also reconstruct an estimate of your overall score correctly, which averaging cannot do.
Why averaging does not work
DRE gives you a percentage for each of seven subject areas, and then says plainly that you cannot recover your overall score by averaging them. That is not a hedge, it is arithmetic. The areas carry different weights, so each percentage represents a different number of questions.
Consider a candidate who scores 60% in Practice and Disclosures and 85% in Transfer of Property. Averaged, those look like they roughly cancel out. In reality the first area is about 38 questions and the second is about 12, so the 60% cost roughly 15 questions and the 85% saved fewer than 2. The heavy area dominates, and averaging hides that entirely.
The worksheet above reconstructs the estimate correctly by multiplying each area percentage by that area's derived question count. It also ranks your areas by weighted loss, meaning points of the whole examination given up in each, which is the ordering that actually tells you what to study next.
“HOWEVER, the overall score cannot be obtained by averaging the percentages.”
What to do next, in order
- 01
Rank your areas by weighted loss, not by score
The worksheet above does this. The lowest percentage is often not the most expensive gap, because a poor score in a light area costs less than a mediocre one in a heavy area.
- 02
Read the guide for your top two areas properly
Not the summary. The worked scenario and the confused-with pairs are where the marks are, because scenario questions are what these areas actually consist of.
- 03
Practise those areas straight through, then mixed
Working an area in isolation is how you learn it. A weighted mock is how you find out whether you can recognise which area a question belongs to under time pressure, which is a separate skill.
- 04
Track what you were confident about and still got wrong
A wrong answer you were sure about is a belief that needs replacing rather than a gap that needs filling, and those are the ones that repeat on a second attempt.
- 05
Wait for your results, then re-apply
Your RE 418A lets you re-apply directly. RE 415A exists for the case where you cannot find that notice, and it must be filed only after results are released.
The rules on retaking
- No limit on the number of examinations during the two-year period following the filing of the original application
- DRE, Re-taking the Examination · checked 2026-08-27
After two years you must file a new application, requalify against all statutory requirements, and pay the fee again.
- $100 per attempt
- DRE fee schedule · checked 2026-08-27
Same amount for an original examination and a re-examination.
- $40 to reschedule
- DRE fee schedule · checked 2026-08-27
Applies to the first and every subsequent reschedule.
- Electronic examination results are given on completion. Further correspondence normally arrives within five business days
- You cannot inspect your book or answer sheet after the session ends