1.1 Mississippi Pass/Fail Jurisprudence Exam Facts

Why the applicant exam format is itself a jurisprudence topic

The Mississippi Pass/Fail Jurisprudence (JP) Examination is the applicant instrument required by the Mississippi State Board of Examiners for Licensed Professional Counselors (the Board). It tests whether you can apply Mississippi counseling law and the American Counseling Association (ACA) Code of Ethics under a real clock. It is not a clinical skills performance. It is also not the National Counselor Examination (NCE) or the National Clinical Mental Health Counselor Examination (NCMHCE) offered through the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). Those national exams are a separate LPC requirement. Mixing the JP exam with a national exam, or with a similarly named renewal product, is one of the highest-yield mistakes in this chapter.

This OpenExamPrep section is independent study material for the applicant Pass/Fail JP exam. It is not a Board, Center for Credentialing & Education (CCE), NBCC, or ACA publication, and it does not claim approval by any of those bodies.

Core applicant-exam rules

The Board’s Provisional Licensed Professional Counselor (P-LPC) page and the Graduate Packet 2025 describe the applicant format in specific numbers. Learn them as published, not as “about 30 questions” or “a one-hour ethics quiz.”

• The exam is administered through CCE Academy.
• Registration becomes available after a P-LPC or Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) application is submitted and application fees are remitted, from the Applicant profile on the App Info tab.
• The first time you open the exam link you create a username and password as a First-Time Visitor. A retake uses the same credentials as a Returning Visitor.
• You have 60 minutes to complete 35 multiple-choice questions.
• You are required to answer all 35 questions.
• You must correctly answer a minimum of 80 percent of the questions to pass.
• The exam is open book. The Board tells applicants they may use printed copies of the Mississippi Rules and Regulations and the ACA Code of Ethics while testing.
• If you do not finish in the time allowed, or you fail, you must wait 30 days to purchase and take the exam again.
• You receive scores by email. Official scores are provided to the Board. You may upload unofficial passing evidence to your portal; CCE Academy still sends the official report.

Eighty percent of 35 items is 28 correct answers as ordinary arithmetic. The Board publishes the 80 percent standard; it does not separately publish a “28-item passing rule.” On test day, think in the Board’s language: answer every item, and clear 80 percent inside 60 minutes.

The current rules compilation to print is Title 30 Part 2201, Effective 09/16/2025, posted by the Board as the Current.pdf. The Board has also posted later rule-submission notices, including a Rule 4.3 filing dated 01/29/2026. For live supervised-hour figures taught in later chapters, confirm the Board’s current PDF. The applicant exam-format facts in this section come from the Graduate Packet 2025 and the P-LPC page, which still describe the 35-item Pass/Fail JP exam.

What “open book” does not forgive

Open book is not extra time. Thirty-five items in 60 minutes is roughly 100 seconds per question if you never flip a page. Candidates who sit down with an un-tabbed stack, or who assume a searchable laptop PDF is authorized because the exam is remote, burn the clock. The Board’s applicant instructions specify printed copies. Do not treat an electronic copy as authorized just because CCE Academy is an online platform. Print the Current.pdf and the ACA 2014 Code. Tab Rule 1.4 definitions, Chapter 3 Board organization, Chapter 4 licensure, Chapter 6 renewal, Chapter 7 practice standards including distance services, Chapter 8 discipline, Miss. Code §§ 73-30-17, 43-21-353, and 43-47-7, and ACA Sections A, B, and I before you sit.

A second open-book trap is leaving items blank. The P-LPC page says you must answer all 35 questions. A third trap is treating a timeout as a free extra attempt. If you do not complete the exam in 60 minutes, the same 30-day repurchase wait that applies to a failing score applies.

Board web pages sometimes print the exam name as “Pass/Fall.” That is a site typo. The instrument is the Pass/Fail JP Examination. Do not invent a “Fall administration” from the typo.

Do not register for the renewal assessment

CCE Academy hosts a public page at academy.cce-global.org/jurisprudence/mississippi titled Mississippi Jurisprudence Assessments. That page states that the Mississippi Jurisprudence Assessment is for LPC and Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor (LPC-S) renewals ONLY. If you are an applicant for licensure, that is not the examination you are required to take. Follow the instructions in your Mississippi profile.

CCE describes those renewal instruments as 30-item (LPC) or 35-item (LPC-S) assessments measuring familiarity with Mississippi law, Mississippi Rules and Regulations, and the ACA ethical codes.

The Board’s LPC renewal page describes a related but not identical no-fail design: a pool of questions in which you must answer a minimum of thirty correctly (thirty-five if you are an LPC-S). The Board says you cannot fail that exam; you keep receiving questions until you reach the designated number correct. LPC completers receive three (3) hours of ethics for Mississippi renewal. LPC-S completers receive two (2) hours of ethics and one (1) hour of supervision. The Board says that examination is required with each renewal.

Do not mash those two renewal descriptions into one “30/35 exam” in your notes. CCE’s public page speaks of 30-item or 35-item instruments. The Board’s renewal page speaks of a no-fail pool until 30 or 35 correct. Neither product is the applicant Pass/Fail JP exam, which is 35 items, 60 minutes, 80 percent, with a real fail condition and a 30-day wait.

Where scores go, and what passing does not do

The Graduate Packet 2025 states that official score reports arrive by email from CCE, that unofficial scores may be uploaded, and that CCE Academy provides the Board with an official score report. The Board, not CCE, issues the P-LPC or LPC credential. Passing the JP exam does not skip fingerprints, coursework review, or, for LPC, the national exam. The P-LPC page also states that Mississippi requires two exams for LPC licensure: the Pass/Fail JP Examination and either the NCE or the NCMHCE. A P-LPC issued before the January 1, 2023 rule revisions still needs a passing JP score report.

If the CCE website itself malfunctions, the Board’s P-LPC FAQ directs you to contact CCE, not to invent a workaround on the public renewal page.

Realistic JP-exam scenario

A Jackson-area graduate, Maya, submits her P-LPC application and remits the fee. She later searches “Mississippi jurisprudence CCE,” lands on academy.cce-global.org/jurisprudence/mississippi, creates a CCE Academy account, and purchases the LPC assessment because 30 or 35 items “looks close enough.” That purchase is the renewal product. CCE’s own page tells applicants this is not their required examination. Maya still needs the Pass/Fail JP registration from her Mississippi App Info tab. On that applicant exam she must answer all 35 items in 60 minutes at 80 percent, using printed Mississippi Rules and the ACA Code. If she instead times out or fails the correct applicant exam, she waits 30 days to repurchase. Uploading a renewal certificate will not replace the official applicant Pass/Fail report CCE sends the Board.