This example Mississippi voter application & literacy test from the mid-1950s is typical of the tests used before passage of the Voting Rights Act to deny Blacks (and other non-whites) the right to vote. While state law mandated that the test be given to everyone, whites were often excused from taking it if, in the opinion of the Registrar, they were of good moral character.
Literacy tests and applications might vary a bit from one county to another, and in some cases they evolved and changed over time in response to court cases and NAACP voter-registration drives, SCLC's Citizenship Schools, and SNCC & CORE grass-roots efforts to teach Blacks how to pass the test.
Note that Question #18 allows the Registrars to choose which section of the Mississippi constitution an applicant has to write and interpret. They could assign a complex section filled with legalese and convoluted sentences, or they could assign a simple one or two-sentence section. Then it is entirely up to the Registrar's judgement if the applicant's answer to Questions #19 and #20 are adequate.
What's missing from this form? Notice that there is no way for anyone to state their party affiliation. No one could register as a Democrat, Republican, or independent. That omission was not an oversight, it was a deliberate tactic on the part of the white establishment to prevent Blacks from participating in the Democratic primary election. In the era of the "solid South," only Democrats were ever elected. Since the Democratic candidates always won the general elections, the only election that really mattered was the party primary. Since there was no way anyone could register on the voter application form as a Democrat, it was up to the party officials in each county to decide who was a member of the party and therefore eligible to vote (or run for office) in the primary — and they were determined to keep the Democratic primary for "whites only." That meant that Blacks who somehow managed to become registered voters were still barred from voting or running for office in the most important local elections.
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