I have a trick question in one of my email quizzes. In the question, the affiant requests an Oath for a document about whether he likes Starbucks or not. It is a sort of a nonsense Oath, but goes over some critical knowledge about Oaths as silly as it sounds.

The answers have to do with the first words the Notary should say when administering the Oath. Some of the answers include:

1. You should ask if the signer wants an Oath or Affirmation
2. Do you swear or affirm that…

These particular answers (and there are about seven total answers to this question to see who really knows their stuff and who is guessing or fudging.) reveal a lot. The signer already request an Oath, so you have already fulfilled your obligation to let the signer choose what type of notarization they want. So you don’t have to ask again what type of Notary act they want. If you answered 1 or 2, you are being redundant and those answers are therefore not good answers. You should then say,

“Do you solemnly swear that you love Starbucks?”

They should raise their right hand and say, “yes” or “I do.”

The purpose of this question is to see who thinks straight and who does not. People who have illogical thinking are not the best people to hire. On the other hand, I recently learned that people who ignore emails are even riskier to hire because they are negligent by definition!