Free Missouri Specific Examination Practice Questions

Sample Practice Questions

Try these 10 sample questions from the Missouri Specific Examination practice bank. Each includes the answer and explanation. Continue with the interactive practice above to review the full question set.

1. 1A Missouri consultant creates electronic parcel data used to establish land boundaries. Which fact places that data work within Missouri's defined practice of professional land surveying?

   1. A. The data are stored in a proprietary format
   2. B. The data relate to the statute's boundary, monumentation, subdivision, or easement activities
   3. C. The consultant charges by the acre
   4. D. The client is a public agency

   Answer: B

   Explanation: RSMo 327.272.1(5) specifically includes creating, preparing, or modifying electronic or computerized data relative to the boundary, monumentation, subdivision, and easement activities in subdivisions (1) through (4).

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 327.272

2. 2Under Missouri's USPLSS rules, when is a government corner classified as lost rather than existent?

   1. A. Whenever its original monument has weathered
   2. B. When its position cannot be determined beyond reasonable doubt from traces, records, testimony, or acceptable evidence
   3. C. Whenever a later survey reports a coordinate difference
   4. D. When no current owner remembers the corner

   Answer: B

   Explanation: Missouri treats a corner as lost only when its position cannot be determined beyond reasonable doubt from the original monument or traces, accessories, reliable records, testimony, or other acceptable evidence.

   Reference: Missouri Secretary of State: Code of State Regulations — RSMo 60.301, definitions of existent corner and lost corner

3. 3Under Missouri's scope statute, when are the listed activities involving easements, geodetic control, state-plane coordinates, topography, improvements, layout, or astronomic azimuths exclusive to a PLS?

   1. A. Whenever performed for compensation
   2. B. Whenever the work is delivered electronically
   3. C. When the activity affects real property rights as statutorily defined
   4. D. Only when a county records the result

   Answer: C

   Explanation: RSMo 327.272.2 states that duties in subdivisions (4) through (13) are not exclusive to professional land surveyors unless they affect real property rights, meaning a recordable real-estate interest affecting boundary-line location.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 327.272

4. 4Before declaring an original Missouri government corner lost, what must a land surveyor do?

   1. A. Use every reasonable means to determine the original position
   2. B. Average the coordinates of nearby occupation corners
   3. C. Accept the newest recorded plat without field inquiry
   4. D. Immediately apply single proportionate measurement

   Answer: A

   Explanation: RSMo 60.311 requires every reasonable means to establish the corner's original position before it may be regarded as lost and reestablished proportionately.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 60.311

5. 5Which Missouri requirement applies before a PLS may affix a personal seal to a final technical submission prepared by staff?

   1. A. The client must own the field data
   2. B. A second PLS must countersign it
   3. C. The PLS must have prepared or personally supervised preparation of the document
   4. D. The document must first be recorded by the county

   Answer: C

   Explanation: RSMo 327.411 requires the licensee to prepare or personally supervise preparation of every document the licensee seals and makes the licensee personally responsible for its contents.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 327.411

6. 6An original Missouri government corner is identifiable, but its location conflicts with the dimensions in the original field notes. Which position controls?

   1. A. The mathematically prorated position
   2. B. The assessor's mapped position
   3. C. The original corner's actual position
   4. D. The midpoint of the nearest record monuments

   Answer: C

   Explanation: RSMo 60.305 makes original government-survey corners the true corners they were intended to represent, regardless of differences from the field-note dimensions.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 60.305

7. 7A Missouri corporation offers professional land-surveying services. Who must personally supervise the corporation's surveying activities in Missouri?

   1. A. Any corporate officer
   2. B. A land surveyor licensed in any state
   3. C. The project owner's attorney
   4. D. A professional land surveyor licensed and authorized in Missouri

   Answer: D

   Explanation: RSMo 327.401 requires the person personally in charge of and supervising a corporation's Missouri land-surveying activities to be licensed and authorized to practice that profession in Missouri.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 327.401

8. 8How is the legal center of a Missouri section established when subdividing it into quarter-sections?

   1. A. At the arithmetic mean of the four section corners
   2. B. At the intersection of straight lines run between opposite established quarter-section corners
   3. C. At the midpoint of the longest section diagonal
   4. D. At the coordinate shown on the county GIS

   Answer: B

   Explanation: RSMo 60.331 directs straight lines between opposite established quarter-section corners; their intersection is the common quarter corner and legal center of the section.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 60.331

9. 9An unauthorized person contracts to perform nonexempt professional land surveying in Missouri and completes the work. What is the person's statutory position when suing for payment?

   1. A. The contract is enforceable if the work benefited the client
   2. B. The contract is unenforceable by that person under contract, quantum meruit, or another theory
   3. C. Only the profit portion is unenforceable
   4. D. The contract becomes enforceable when a PLS later reviews the plat

   Answer: B

   Explanation: RSMo 327.461 makes such a contract unenforceable by the unlicensed or unauthorized provider regardless of benefit conferred, including under quantum meruit.

   Reference: One Section — RSMo 327.461

10. 10When subdividing a Missouri quarter-section, where are ordinary quarter-quarter corners first established?

    1. A. At points midway between the relevant quarter-section and section corners or section center
    2. B. At equal-area positions computed from occupations
    3. C. At the nearest existing fence corners
    4. D. At quarter points of the section diagonal

    Answer: A

    Explanation: RSMo 60.335 ordinarily places sixteenth-section corners midway between the relevant quarter-section and section corners or the section center, with a proportionate exception on the last half-mile closing on township boundaries.

    Reference: One Section — RSMo 60.335(1)