Ryan,
Makes great sense to me, and looks like we are parallel in terms of where we're at and what we're looking to do. Regarding the study course, I went through Real Estate Institute based in Skokie/Niles. It is a self-study course with a book, and they give you an outline on chapters to study before taking a unit test (their units don't have the same chronological order as the book goes). You also have to attend a handful of live classes, but you can do that as a webinar--they actually feed the video from the live class, and it is quite interactive. This makes it convenient to avoid travel.
I found it helpful to create flash cards for terms and principles with the full descriptions on back. I didn't do this for all of the chapters, but definitely ones dealing with ownership types, contracts, etc, and I made around 100 cards. Definitely helpful. I believe the key, though, for the state test (because it is very different), it was helpful to know the material well enough to understand situations practically, then using what you know, figure out the answer/solution. The biggest tip I can give you, though, is schedule about 1-2 hours per day and go through a chapter per day. Once you get through the chapter, review the information and the practice tests before taking the unit exam. Using that method, I was able to knock out everything in 2 months or so. Passed the state on the first try. Good luck!
