A new citizenship test is being rolled out:
In October 2008 a new version of the U.S. citizenship test will be taken by all applicants. Could you pass it? The questions are usually selected from a list of 100 samples that prospective citizens can look at ahead of the interview. Some are easy, some are not. We have picked some of the more difficult ones.
NOTES: Candidates are not given multiple choices in the naturalization interview. The following questions have been adapted from the immigration service’s sample questions.
Given the concerns about the process of becoming a US citizen, this 4th of July might be a great opportunity to see if those of us who are citizens could pass the sample test.
No references allowed!
More Information:
Issues:
Comments
I passed (thankfully)
100%
I didn't miss any, but I imagine I've taken an American history class more recently than most folks (it was the required class I needed to finish my undergrad). What I don't understand is why is our citizenship test is oriented around recalling historical facts rather than knowing about rights and responsibilities.
I agree
Jason,
I'm sure that you've taken an American history class a lot more recently than I have so I'm pleased that you did better. I agree that this test would have been better if it focused on rights and responsibilities. Another wasted opportunity by our federal bureaucrats but I'm not certain that the objectives here were what we would put forward if we were given this task. I would really be interested in the results should this test be given to a group of recent high school graduates (and not necessarily from Orange County).
I messed up Susan B. Anthony.
What a rookie mistake!
One man with courage makes a majority.
- Andrew Jackson
The Test
Look at the website for a more expanded explanation and some of the "rights and responsibilities" required knowledge.
George, across the nation, we do very poorly with high school and college student pass rates on the factual part. When I taught the Intro to American Politics course, each year I gave a version of the test the first day of class and the results usually averaged 60%. Most students were not taught these things. One of my favorites was the old "trick" question, "how many members does the House of Representatives have?" The answer is 440. Note that in the new version, they ask how many voting members there are.
What is passing?
No Revocations
That's My Point !
I Understand Your Point
The test is only one of the requirements, and like most testing mechanisms, there are flaws. When you look at the specifics, there are provisions that get to what you are saying. Take a look at http://www.us-immigration-attorney.com/citizenship.htm for the specifics about good moral character and attachment to the Constitution. Also note that some can get an exemption from the knowledge test.
90%
So lucky .... !
I'll bet US Citizens would
I'll bet US Citizens would score very poorly on a basic financial and economic literacy exam, which has more practical impact on their day to day well being than the number of amendments there are to the US Contstitution.
(I missed one on the MSNBC test).
Great post
I get to stay.
Thanks, Fred, for a great 4th of July post.
I'm home!
Well, only missed one: number of amendments to constitution. One of my undergraduate majors was political science.....the other was history.....of course that was in the 14th century (when I was an undergrad). Taught American History for 6 years at the high school level. Embarrassing. But, I'm confident that somewhere in my life there were 23 amendments.
The Irony Of It!
Roscoe, the 27th Amendment took the longest to ratify and it deals with a topic of recent local interest!
Cultural literacy
They most certainly could !
"The three branches, our system of checks and balances. (The current Bush administation could use a refresher course, neh?)"
And some legislators and jurists as well. You don't arrive at the imbalance we now seem to have without the other two branches sitting idly by.
let's give this test to
The Arc of the Moral Universe
We could certainly all stand to pay more attention to the documents that founded our country.
So here's to those who "mutually pledge[d] to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" "that all men are created equal" and that "it is their right, it is their duty . . . to provide new guards for their future security" because their leader had "refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good . . . obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither . . . obstructed the administration of justice . . . affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power . . . Protecting [large bodies of armed troops] by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit . . . depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury . . . transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses . . . taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments . . . [and] transporting large armies of . . . mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages" [The Pennsylvania Packet issue of 7/8/1776.]
To wit:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton
John Hancock
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Their actions and words were not always as inclusive as the concepts that they tapped into, but they might as easily have been speaking of a more recent man by the name of George. Some here have questioned our local governments "for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people" but those people will get no apology from me.
. . . here's to the next 232 years of bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice . . .