The new citizenship test

Last week, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a list of 144 questions for a "New Pilot Naturalization Exam."

Most of the questions seemed to be pretty straightforward and not too difficult, but there are a couple of things that I thought were curious -

1. Many of the questions were almost word-for-word repeats of previous questions.

For example, question 27 asks "What decides each state’s number of U.S. Representatives?" while question 28 asks "How is each state’s number of Representatives decided?"

2. While the intent of most of the questions was to establish that the prospective citizens taking the test have a basic level of knowledge of US History and civics, two of them test knowledge so obscure that even highly educated natural-born citizens wouldn't know the answers.

Question 100 asks "Name one of the writers of the Federalist Papers?" and question 101 asks "What group of essays supported passage of the U.S. Constitution?"

I consider myself intelligent and knowledgeable, but there's no way that I can honestly say that I would have known the answers to those particular questions.

Anyway, on to the main purpose of this post - How would you do on the test?

I'm not going to post all 144 questions here; they're available at the link at the beginning of this post.

For the purposes of this post, 30 questions that are representative of the entire list will do. The answers, also from the USCIS website, will be posted in a comment.

2. What is the supreme law of the land?

5. What do we call changes to the Constitution?

8. Name one right or freedom from the First Amendment.

13. What are the three branches or parts of the government?

15. Who is in charge of the executive branch?

16. Who makes federal laws?

22. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?

29. Why do we have three branches of government?

30. Name one example of checks and balances.

33. The President must be born in what country?

39. Who becomes President if both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve?

46. Name two Cabinet-level positions.

50. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?

53. Name one thing only the federal government can do.

57. What is the capital (or capital city) of your state?

60. What is the majority political party in the House of Representatives now?

82. Name two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy.

83. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?

91. There are 13 original states. Name three.

92. What group of people was taken to America and sold as slaves?

93. Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?

98. Who is called the “Father of Our Country”?

102. Name one of the major American Indian tribes in the United States.

109. Name one problem that led to the Civil War.

117. What major event happened on September 11, 2001, in the United States?

122. What did Martin Luther King, Jr. do?

125. What is the longest river in the United States?

128. Where is the Grand Canyon? [Any local readers who get this one wrong need to take a hammer to their modems before going outside for a while. :)) ]

130. What country is on the southern border of the United States? [Ditto.]

144. Name two national U.S. holidays.

How do you think you did?

Check the answers in the comment section.

Most of us should get them all correct; certainly, anything less than 25 out of 30 correct is an embarrassment. :)

Later!