Why is the Brititish Citizenship test so hard not even a national could pass it!

Cause they don’t want immigrants to be citizens.

Actually, I believe the same kind of thing could be said for US Immigration tests, too.

Most of the material is covered in 5th – 10th grade social studies/history courses… but it’s not the kind of thing your average person on the street is going to remember.

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Big deal… so they take a test. It’s a rite of passage. It’s confirmation that they actually want to work for citizenship. Because citizenship is worth something. A lot, actually.

It seems a little weird, even frivolous, but what exactly is hard about it?

@DarkScribe well could you answer these questions correctly and pass given the pass criteria? I mean many of my friends all UK nationals have tried it and failed miserably and were wholly British to the end…some of the questions are seemingly pointless…I just think its a ‘show test’ nothing more.

@Tobotron, so… what would you recommend instead?

Is there any sort of study guide for the test? I assume there is, since you posted q’s. I think it’s ok… sure, I wouldn’t know the answers to most questions like that about the US, but I’m ok with people having to prove that they care enough about becoming a citizen to study and jump through some minor hoops.

An English test, proof of skills to offer the country, and a more realistic test that are relevant because this test doesn’t provide proof of day to day knowledge; for example knowing where London is on a map is probably more important than knowing how many members there are in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

How would you test “proof of skills”? A set of university-level final exams? Or would a current/prospective employer need to vouch for the individual?

Shouldn’t everyone – and I mean everyone – have a better and very in-depth understanding of their government operations (especially representative governments)? Having to merely memorize a raw count seems trivial.

I don’t know how to implement a test of skills I’m not making policy merely suggesting the idea…you’ve made my point for me that this test is about memorizing answers from a book, not really caring about the country…its true though most teenagers know even less than I do about the UK, certainly there’s a diluted sense of patriotism because were not given a reason to be proud about our country…in fact in many ways your not allowed to be unless the football is on :S

You don’t need Citizenship in the UK,you just come in on the back of an Articulated Lorry and Bingo lifes a ball!
You see this Government don’t give two flying fucks about Immigration!

Clarification:

When I wrote, “Having to merely memorize a raw count seems trivial,” I was intending to convey that the level of effort to learn said information is “trivial”... especially when weighed against the reward of such effort: citizenship! I did not intend to imply that the info itself is trivial.

@Tobotron: Why not send us the link next time rather than the entire text, please?

@gailcalled because it was on Facebook and I don’t know who does and who doesn’t have accounts and I hadn’t seen the exam posted like this anywhere else, however I’m sure someone will now post a link to one, but I do see where your coming from non the less ;)

I think that some of the questions are a bit ridiculous. Why does one need to know when Mother’s Day in the UK is to become a citizen?

I recently took the US citizenship test. It was oriented toward knowledge of how the government works, with questions ranging from easy (e.g. Who is the current President?) to hard (here is a link to the test and the free study guides).

The pass rate is much lower for the US one: 60% correct out of a randomly generated 10 questions from the 100 options.

You didn’t mention anything about the English test administered, but from my experience with the US English competency test, it is a joke. I had to read out loud the question “In what month is Columbus Day?”, the interviewer then told me the answer, and I had to write it down on a piece of paper “Columbus Day is in October”. That’s it. No joke.

So, what I would want from a citizenship test (for any country) is a test of government related questions, a (more stringent) language exam, and, most essentially, free study materials provided.

I doubt the majority of the public knows the majority of the answers for this test. I want good people in the country I don’t really mind if you know a lot about the country.

Sorry, to clarify in my previous post (@bezdomnaya), it’s not the pass rate that is lower, it’s the percentage one needs to get correct to pass that’s lower. Just realized that was confusing.

My wife’s just done this. I agree, not many UK citizens would pass if they were to sit the exam cold. However, there’s a large study book and once you’ve swotted then you should be able to pass it. Clearly it’s not trying to gauge whether you should be a citizen based on if you know when mothers day is, or whatever, it’s testing if you can read and learn in English. Btw, the test I saw had a lot of stuff on cultural history and the processes of government, and we both learned quite a bit from it. I’m sure there may be better ways to assess suitability for UK citizenship but it does seem a reasonable hurdle to have to get over.