Minnesota Jurisprudence Exam: Boards, Format, and Preparation

The Minnesota jurisprudence exam is a state-law test that several Minnesota licensing boards require before you can practice your profession in the state. It covers Minnesota-specific statutes and administrative rules for your field. Format, fee, passing score, and retake rules are set by each board separately, so the version you take depends entirely on which board licenses you.

Which Minnesota Boards Require a Jurisprudence Exam

Minnesota’s licensing boards each decide independently whether to require a jurisprudence exam.¹ These boards currently do:

Board of Dentistry. Every dental license category takes the Minnesota Dental Jurisprudence Examination: dentists, dental hygienists, dental therapists, and dental assistants. State law prohibits waiving the jurisprudence portion, even for applicants who have passed national board exams.²
Board of Veterinary Medicine. A 50-question open-book exam with a 90% passing score.³
Board of Pharmacy. Pharmacist applicants take the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination (MPJE) through the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.⁴
Board of Chiropractic Examiners. The board sends the applicable laws and exam to you after your application is approved. It’s the final step in licensure.⁵
Board of Optometry. Passing score of 80% or better, valid for one year from the exam date.⁶
Board of Psychology. The Minnesota Professional Responsibility Exam (PRE) tests knowledge of the Psychology Practice Act and its rules of conduct.⁷

Two other boards use jurisprudence assessments differently and aren’t an initial-licensure hurdle in the usual sense. The Board of Physical Therapy folds a jurisprudence exam into annual online license renewal.⁸ The Board of Social Work offers a Jurisprudence Online Learning Module that is required only for licensees reactivating from temporary leave or emeritus inactive status; it’s optional for other license types.⁹

Format, Fees, and Passing Scores

Dental Jurisprudence Exam

This is the most structured of Minnesota’s professional law exams. PSI Services LLC administers it for the Board of Dentistry, and the same exam applies to every dental license category, from general dentists through resident dentists, faculty dentists, dental therapists, hygienists, and assistants.¹⁰ Administrative rules require that your passing score be no more than five years old at the time of licensure.¹¹

100 scored questions plus 10 unscored pilot items
120 minutes
Open-book
Passing score: 80%
Fee: $85, nonrefundable and nontransferable, valid for one year from payment

The open-book rules have specific limits. You can bring loose-leaf, spiral-bound, or ring-bound copies of the board’s statutes and rules, and those materials may be highlighted, underlined, or annotated with notes you added before test day. You cannot write in, highlight, or mark your materials during the exam, and no additional loose paper is allowed.¹⁰

Pharmacy MPJE

The MPJE is a computer-adaptive exam administered nationally through NABP rather than directly by the Minnesota board. You register and pay through NABP’s system, and the board emails results five to seven business days after your exam date.⁴

Veterinary Jurisprudence Exam

Also open-book, with 50 questions and a 90% passing score, the highest threshold of any Minnesota jurisprudence exam. The fee is $75, and retakes cost another $75 each.¹²

Chiropractic Jurisprudence Exam

The board handles this one directly rather than through a testing service. After approving your application, the board sends you the applicable laws and the exam. You complete it and return it with a signed affidavit.⁵

Optometry Jurisprudence Exam

You can schedule the jurisprudence exam alongside the national clinical examination or on a separate day. If you pass the clinical portion but fail the jurisprudence portion, you can retake just the jurisprudence exam without repeating the clinical.⁶

What the Exam Covers

Every Minnesota jurisprudence exam draws from the statutes and administrative rules that govern your profession, especially the legal boundaries of what you can and cannot do.

For dental professionals, that means Minnesota Statutes Chapter 150A (the Dental Practice Act) and the administrative rules in Minnesota Rules Chapter 3100.² For psychologists, it’s the Psychology Practice Act’s rules of conduct.⁷ Veterinary professionals are tested on the laws and rules governing veterinary practice in Minnesota specifically.³

Across professions, the recurring themes are:

Scope of practice, meaning the tasks you can legally perform and where your authority ends. This matters especially for dental hygienists and dental assistants, whose scope is narrower than a dentist’s.
Mandatory reporting of suspected maltreatment of children or vulnerable adults to local authorities.¹³
Disciplinary grounds, meaning the conduct that can result in license suspension, revocation, or other board discipline.
Patient privacy under federal HIPAA rules and Minnesota’s own privacy protections.¹⁴
Continuing education and renewal requirements for keeping your license active.

How to Prepare

Most Minnesota jurisprudence exams are open-book, so preparation is less about memorization and more about knowing where to find things fast. Two hours goes quickly when you’re flipping through statutes for the first time.

Start with the right materials. The Board of Dentistry directs applicants to purchase study materials through MN Gov Publications.¹⁵ The full text of Minnesota statutes and administrative rules is available free from the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov. Print and bind the chapters relevant to your profession. For dental professionals, that’s Chapter 150A of the statutes and Chapter 3100 of the rules.

Read through the statutes once before exam day. Highlight key provisions and add tabs or notes to mark sections by topic. Because the dental exam allows pre-highlighted and annotated materials but prohibits any writing during the session, all your organizational work has to happen beforehand.¹⁰ A simple table of contents keyed to section numbers will save real time when you need to look something up mid-exam.

If You Don’t Pass

Failing isn’t the end of the road, but the retake rules vary.

The dental jurisprudence exam allows unlimited retakes. You can’t schedule a new attempt on the same day you tested, because scores need time to process, but in practice a Wednesday failure can lead to a Friday retake depending on availability. Each attempt costs another $85.¹⁰

The pharmacy MPJE is stricter. After three unsuccessful attempts, or if 18 months pass from your first exam, you must petition the Board of Pharmacy for authorization to test again, and additional fees apply.⁴

For optometrists, failing the jurisprudence portion doesn’t require you to redo a clinical exam you already passed.⁶ Other boards handle retakes case by case, so check with your specific board.

Requesting Testing Accommodations

If you have a disability, you can request accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA applies to all licensing exams, whether administered by a state agency or a private testing company like PSI.¹⁶

Accommodations can include extended time, a distraction-free room, screen-reading technology, large-print materials, a scribe, wheelchair-accessible testing stations, or permission to monitor a medical condition during the exam. The testing entity must respond promptly enough for you to sit for the exam on a reasonable timeline.¹⁶

Submit the request as early as you can. For PSI-administered exams, the request goes through PSI’s accommodations process. For board-administered exams like the chiropractic jurisprudence exam, contact the board directly.

1
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 214 – Examining and Licensing Boards
2
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 150A.06 – Licensure
3
Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine. Jurisprudence Exam
4
Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. New Pharmacist General Requirements and Information
5
Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners. Doctor of Chiropractic Licensure Requirements
6
Legal Information Institute. Minnesota Rules 6500.2400
7
Minnesota Board of Psychology. Licensure Exams – EPPP and PRE
8
Minnesota State Board of Physical Therapy. Jurisprudence Exam
9
State of Minnesota Board of Social Work. Jurisprudence Online Learning Module
10
PSI Services LLC. Minnesota Jurisprudence Examination Candidate Information Bulletin
11
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Rules Chapter 3100
12
Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine. U of M VMC Faculty Clinician License
13
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 260E.06 – Maltreatment Reporting
14
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule
15
Minnesota Board of Dentistry. Exams
16
ADA.gov. ADA Requirements – Testing Accommodations