Passed the PA Notary exam with a 91% — breakdown of what actually mattered
Just got my results back and I'm officially a Pennsylvania commissioned notary. Scored 91% on the first attempt after about 4 weeks of prep, studying roughly 45 minutes a day. The exam is 50 questions and you need a 70% to pass, so there's decent margin, but I didn't want to cut it close.
The biggest chunk of questions covered proper identification procedures, acknowledgments vs. jurats, and the rules around who you can and can't notarize for. Family member rules in PA are strict and they test that directly. I also got hit with a few questions about journal requirements and remote online notarization, which I almost skipped studying.
Anything related to the notary stamp came up in at least 3–4 questions — required elements, size specifications, what happens if your stamp information changes. Don't gloss over that section thinking it's just administrative.
The PA Notary Public Law from 2017 is the core document everything's based on. I printed it out and highlighted sections as I worked through practice questions. That made a bigger difference than any single study guide I found online.
I scored 78% my first time and retook it last spring with an 88%. The difference was almost entirely the stamp and record-keeping sections — I'd written those off as easy and got burned. Second time I took those just as seriously as the substantive legal standards content.
Congrats! I'm taking mine next month and the remote online notarization material is exactly what I've been nervous about. It feels like a moving target since the rules are still relatively new in PA.
Did they ask about specific platform requirements or was it more about the legal framework around RON?
The PA Department of State's official FAQ is useful for edge cases like what to do when a signer can't physically sign their name. Those weird scenarios showed up more than I expected and the 2017 law document alone doesn't always cover them clearly.
The journal requirement questions are sneaky. Some states don't require a notary journal at all, so if you've studied for another state's exam before, you might carry wrong assumptions in.