How to Pass the Louisiana Notary Exam is by far the most recurring questions among individuals. One job qualification that may help you land numerous jobs in Louisiana is being commissioned as a Notary Public. To become a Notary Public in Louisiana, a candidate must pass a notary exam which, since the current format was adopted, has a pass rate just under 20%. However, while Notaries in most states are authorized to do little more than to serve as official witnesses for signatures, in Louisiana, Notaries are authorized to draft wills and contracts, handle successions if the gross value of the estate is under $125,000, draft the documents associated with the transfer of real property and more. While non-attorney notaries are not allowed to give legal advice, they can open private practices to provide these services directly to the public.
The First Step Towards the Louisiana Notary Examination
The Louisiana Notary Examination is administered by the Secretary of State’s office, which publishes the application procedures on their website.
Before anyone is allowed to take the Louisiana Notary Examination, they must first take a pre-assessment. How to Pass the Louisiana Notary Exam starts with this online test costs $30 and I believe the function is to weed out candidates before they have spent a lot of time and money to prepare for the Notary Exam. While the law only requires that the pre-assessment be taken a week prior to the registration deadline for the examination, I recommend that the pre-assessment be your first step towards the Louisiana Notary Examination.
The pre-assessment is a reading test, nothing more. It does not deal with legal terms, nor does it require knowledge of any particular topic. It tests your ability to read quickly and with comprehension. Upon completion you will be given a score, along with an opinion about whether you will be successful in taking the Louisiana Notary Examination. You are allowed to take the Notary Exam regardless of your pre-assessment score.
Picking an Examination Date
Once you have taken the pre-assessment and decided to proceed, the next step is to tentatively pick an examination date. The Louisiana Notary Examination is administered at least twice a year. If too many people register for the facilities used, some are assigned to other nearby weekends.
You will need to bring the official study guide Fundamentals of Louisiana Notarial Law and Practice with you to the examination, and you are only allowed to bring the edition for the current year. For that reason, I recommend aiming for a fall examination date, but purchasing the book as soon as it is available in January. The cost is $100.00.
Another option is to aim for the spring date, but to be open to waiting if you are not prepared. While you may purchase the book any time, you must register for the exam thirty (30) days prior to the testing date.
Begin Reading with a Purpose
Next, you will need to review the entire book, highlighter, and pen in hand. You are trying to do two things:
- Gain a general familiarity with the topic. If you have to figure out what a mortgage is during the exam, you are going to fail. In general, when a word is used on the exam you need to have a pretty good idea of its meaning and how it relates to other things. You have to know the basics of real estate transactions and wills.
- Prepare yourself to locate specific information. Highlight definitions, qualifications, requirements, and other information you would need to draft the document being discussed.Also, when you highlight words in the text, go to the glossary and see if they are there. If so, add a page number. If not, put them on the right page, and add a page number. Before you take the exam, make sure you have page numbers by all the words in the glossary.As an example, on the exam, you will be asked if certain people can serve as witnesses on a particular document. You need to be able to quickly find the pages on that document and the pages that give the qualifications for a witness (unless you have a photographic memory and know this off the top of your head).
Purchase a Study Guide and/or Take a Preparation Class
The Secretary of State maintains a list of organizations providing preparation for the Notary Exam. You can use it to start your search for help in preparing for the Louisiana Notary Examination. Look up the providers and you will find testimonials about those who are helpful.
How to Pass the Louisiana Notary Exam is guided by a study guide which should do more than re-state the laws that are written in Fundamentals of Louisiana Notarial Law and Practice. It should give you a lot of sample test questions and a description of how to read test questions efficiently and effectively. I recommend Alan Childress and his sidepiece books.
Even before you finish your first review of Fundamentals of Louisiana Notarial Law and Practice, start working your way through the Study Guide you purchased.
Start with the first sample test or a section with about ten questions. If you are not 100% sure of the answer to a question, look it up in Fundamentals of Louisiana Notarial Law and Practice before answering the question. This not only helps you learn the right answer, but it also helps you learn how to quickly find information in your book. Also check out the Louisiana Notary Exam Sidepiece to the Study Guide by Alan Childress on Amazon:
Most of the sample tests in the guide I used were ten to fifteen questions long, and they focused on one area. Once you have completed the sample test, check your answers and, if you did not get something right, try to figure out why the other answer is right.
Next, if you had to look up information, highlight it in the book, and, if possible, note the page in the glossary.
During my preparation for the Louisiana Notary Examination, I would review ten to fifteen pages in Fundamentals of Louisiana Notarial Law and Practice per night and take several sample tests. If you are not able to consistently get 80% or more correct responses to sample tests, you are not ready to take the Notary Exam.
Realize That You Will Be Asked Application Questions
The Louisiana Notary Examination is going to be different from most tests you have taken in the past. They are not going to ask you to define “lien” nor are they going to ask you to list the qualifications to witness a will. Rather, you are going to be presented with a scenario–a story about someone who hired you to perform notary services–and some draft documents that go with the scenario. You will have to review the package and then answer some questions.
That is why a good study guide is so helpful–it gets you used to answering the types of questions that will be asked and used to quickly looking up the information needed. I have attached a sample scenario question and an explanation of the answers.
As you can see, this one scenario requires knowledge of Small Successions, Community Property, Forced Heirship, and Proper Venue.
If this scenario was on the examination, you could also expect to see questions about who had to execute documents or sample documents with choices for what goes in the blank. It is possible that you would be asked to identify the proper legal description of the property.
In short, this is not a test you can pass by memorizing the definition of small succession. However, if you are aware that small successions exist, and can quickly locate the section of your book that discusses them, you will note the $125,000 limit. If you know about the concept of forced heirship, and your glossary lists the page number on which it is discussed, you can quickly check to see if any of the Smith children qualify.
In The Testing Room
During the test, you are allowed to scribble on the test booklet, but you are not allowed to write in your copy of Fundamentals of Louisiana Notarial Law and Practice. The first thing I recommend doing is going to the back of the test and seeing how many test items there are, and then dividing that number by five, the number of hours you are allowed for the exam. Then mark the booklet showing how far you should get each hour. This will help you pace yourself.
As you work your way through the test, mark items you are not sure of. If you get time, you can go back to them. You do not want to get bogged down searching for the answer to one question such that you do not have time to answer ten that you know. There is no penalty for guessing.
This is just a brief breakdown of what to expect. More information can be found on the Secretary of State’s website. Additionally you can try out and practice the Louisiana Notary Practice Exam module which features multiple choice questions. They are not scenario based but will help you cover some basics to start. Check it out below!
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