Can you Pass the UK citizenship test?

[Skeletor]

Pass 20/24...USA here!

 

[mike3]

Thought I'd try this for fun

15/24 Rejected! But I'm from the USA and have never been to Britain like, at all, so most of those were good guesses

Just for fun, though...

 

[ddt]

I'm just going to leave this here: this is not the UK citizenship test.

Neither is this, though it appears to be closer to an actual citizenship test. I got 14.5 out of 24.

One surely hopes the actual citizenship test does a better job at the grammar and wording of the questions.
"When did QE2 reign?" Duh, she still reigns, you mean the year she ascended to the throne.
Or calling the Concorde the only supersonic passenger aircraft. Never heard of the Tupolev Tu-144?
And well, the question "Who built Hadrian's Wall" is a bit of a giveaway...

One wrong according to the answer sheet, but a score of 14/24.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

One surely hopes the actual citizenship test does a better job at the grammar and wording of the questions.
"When did QE2 reign?" Duh, she still reigns, you mean the year she ascended to the throne.

She never reigned. Ships rarely do that. According to Wikipedia: "QE2 retired from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She was acquired by Istithmar, the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai."

Queen Elizabeth II on the other hand, is still on the throne.

The whole site is nonsensical, written in atrociously bad English, and clearly has nothing to do with any real citizenship test.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

You'd love the Australian one. It asks you what Sir Donald Bradman's batting average was.

It was at the back of my mind, but I've now remembered what such stuff reminded me of: the absurd IQ tests that were used by the US army in 1917. It was the first time psychologists were able to apply the doctrine of "general intelligence" on a mass scale. Stephen Jay Gould wrote about it in some detail in his book The Mismeasure of Man. Note that those supposedly scientific tests were given to a lot of very recent immigrants to the USA, many of them with little or no English, as well as to many illiterate young men, both immigrant and American-born. The questions required one to know about baseball, and know the names of players. Even the pictorial version of the IQ test, which was intended for illiterate recruits only, required not only an understanding of English, but for one to be familiar with bowling alleys, and the stances people go through when they're bowling.

Strangely, illiterate people who had never had an opportunity to go to school, with a bad grasp of English, and no interest in either baseball or bowling, came out with very low IQ scores.

 

[ddt]

She never reigned. Ships rarely do that. According to Wikipedia: "QE2 retired from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She was acquired by Istithmar, the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai."

Queen Elizabeth II on the other hand, is still on the throne.

OK, OK, I was just economical with key strokes and electrons. They spelled out her name all right.

The whole site is nonsensical, written in atrociously bad English, and clearly has nothing to do with any real citizenship test.

Oh yes, agree. Let's see who owns the domain.

$ whois citizenshiptest.org.uk
[Querying whois.nic.uk]
[whois.nic.uk]

    Domain name:
        citizenshiptest.org.uk

    Registrant:
        E Fidan

    Registrant type:
        UK Individual

    Registrant's address:
        The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
        address omitted from the WHOIS service.
<snip>

There was another question I thought was wrong. Which two languages were used in England in the Middle Ages?
(a) Anglosaxon (I think it said exactly that)
(b) Norman French
(c) Latin
(d) Greek
I answered (a) and (b), but I'm pretty sure that Latin was also in use. At least with the clergy.

 

[fleabeetle]

I'm just going to leave this here: this is not the UK citizenship test.

Neither is this, though it appears to be closer to an actual citizenship test. I got 14.5 out of 24.

Briton here: arthwollipot, I'm another who found yours, pretty confusing. Indications seem to be that your link leads to multiple tests, with different questions in each. In the one that I landed up with, I consider that I got 19 right out of 24: but "the machine" told me that I'd got 13 right. ??!!

In Dcdrac's original "Independent" test, I got 22 out of 24 (with some guessing). I said that the main political parties don't actively look for members; and was bemused by the "values" one, and ended up absent-mindedly not giving a (random) answer to it.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

OK, OK, I was just economical with key strokes and electrons. They spelled out her name all right.

Given the absurdities and grammatical errors that were served up to me, I assumed you'd done a straight copy-and-paste. Sorry.

There was another question I thought was wrong. Which two languages were used in England in the Middle Ages?
(a) Anglosaxon (I think it said exactly that)
(b) Norman French
(c) Latin
(d) Greek
I answered (a) and (b), but I'm pretty sure that Latin was also in use. At least with the clergy.

Latin remained in use in England for a long time after the Middle Ages. Newton's 1687 Principia was probably the last major scientific work to be written in Latin. While there is no real date for when the "Middle Ages" ended, that's definitely past it.

My hypothesis, and it's nothing more than that, is that this site, if it isn't someone's bad idea of a joke, is part of a scam operation selling courses supposedly preparing badly informed would-be immigrants to successfully pass a citizenship test in Britain.

 

[Lucian]

OK, OK, I was just economical with key strokes and electrons. They spelled out her name all right.


Oh yes, agree. Let's see who owns the domain.

$ whois citizenshiptest.org.uk
[Querying whois.nic.uk]
[whois.nic.uk]

    Domain name:
        citizenshiptest.org.uk

    Registrant:
        E Fidan

    Registrant type:
        UK Individual

    Registrant's address:
        The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
        address omitted from the WHOIS service.
<snip>

There was another question I thought was wrong. Which two languages were used in England in the Middle Ages?
(a) Anglosaxon (I think it said exactly that)
(b) Norman French
(c) Latin
(d) Greek
I answered (a) and (b), but I'm pretty sure that Latin was also in use. At least with the clergy.

Old Norse should also have been included. Like Old English and Anglo-Norman, it was a language actually spoken in medieval England. At least one English king was a native Norse speaker.

 

[Jungle Jim]

Rejected! 18 out of 24 - but then, I'm from the U.S. Sorry! (How many do you need to pass?)

The first sentence of the test says 75% correct to pass--18.

I got 22 right which surprised me. I am not an Anglophile, but the questions were in my common knowledge.

 

[elgarak]

I just wanted to expand on the "this isn't the official UK citizenship test" posts (for anyone who may be interested).

When a person moves to the UK they have to go through several steps in the citizenship process. There is an intermediate step that will grant you what's called Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), similar to a resident alien status in the US (or "green card holder", as it's more popularly known).

The Life in the UK Test is part of the process that grants you an ILR (the other parts being a chain of paperwork establishing your residency for 2 years, financial documents, and finally, a whopping large chunk of money). Once you submit all that you wait for them to review everything and then, presto! You can now go on the dole, vote in [some] elections, etc...

However, you are NOT, at this point, a citizen. A person with an ILR is free to come and go from the UK, but they do not hold a UK passport, can't vote in EU elections, can't stand for some of the higher elected offices, etc... We're like "Citizens Lite", if you will.
...

It seems, then, that my status is already effectively ILR, me being a citizen of an EU country.

 

[Akhenaten]

22/24

I guess I should just stay where I am.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

I found yet another version of what is supposed to be a British citizenship test online at http://www.theguardian.com/uk/quiz/2013/jan/27/british-citizenship-test-quiz-new. This one only has 10 questions, and I got all of them right, just as I got all the questions right on the 24-question test that started this thread, thanks to some lucky guessing. The Guardian version I could answer without any guesses needed. I'm getting more British by the minute.

The requirement for at least 75% correct responses to pass does seem to be mentioned on a lot of sites. Since I scored 100% on the two purported web-based tests I actually tried, I feel very safe that I could pass a British citizenship test. I still have no idea whether I could pass a test for Belgian citizenship, though. Even though I've had that citizenship all my life, and have no intention of changing it.

 

[ddt]

It seems, then, that my status is already effectively ILR, me being a citizen of an EU country.

And that's over before you realize it. Some time next year.

The only thing I learned from these quizzes is that your driving license is valid indefinitely. When I lived in Germany, I had one year to exchange my Dutch license for a German one. But that was 20 years ago.

 

[zooterkin]

And that's over before you realize it. Some time next year.

The only thing I learned from these quizzes is that your driving license is valid indefinitely. When I lived in Germany, I had one year to exchange my Dutch license for a German one. But that was 20 years ago.

UK driving licences last until you are 70 (then have to be renewed periodically), but when they introduced the photo ID part (a credit card sized bit of plastic, separate from the piece of paper that you also need), they made it a requirement to replace it every 10 year, with a renewal fee each time.

 

[Nessie]

22/24. Magistrates not needing to be qualified and Arkwright being a factory man caught me out.

However......there are no magistrates in Scotland (if they had asked about JPs I would answered correctly) and in Scotland Robert Owen is the famous person associated with improvements for factory workers even though Arkwright came first.

 

[ddt]

UK driving licences last until you are 70 (then have to be renewed periodically), but when they introduced the photo ID part (a credit card sized bit of plastic, separate from the piece of paper that you also need), they made it a requirement to replace it every 10 year, with a renewal fee each time.

So, if I'd move to the UK with a 4-year old licence, I'd have to replace it after 6 years, and thus get a British driving licence in the process? Then the first quiz was wrong, as it clearly stated "indefinitely".

Dutch driving licenses have photo-ID as long as I know, and you also have to replace it every 10 years (and when you become 70, you need a doctor's statement about your health). When I returned to the Netherlands from Germany, I could keep my German licence until it was ten years old, and then it was replaced by a Dutch licence.

I lost a bit in the process (which I had previously received for free): a Dutch licence for a passenger car goes to 3,500 kg maximum weight, while a German licence goes to 7,000 kg. Every German should be able to drive their personal Panzer, after all. I didn't bother with the extra paperwork needed to keep the "light truck" part as I hadn't used it once in those 10 years, despite advertising with all my friends that I'd be happy to drive their moving truck. At least I kept the extra perk of being allowed to tow trailers of unlimited weight.

 

[zooterkin]

So, if I'd move to the UK with a 4-year old licence, I'd have to replace it after 6 years, and thus get a British driving licence in the process? Then the first quiz was wrong, as it clearly stated "indefinitely".

No, what I said applies to UK driving licences, which is in two parts. As I understand it, an EU licence is acceptable as long as it is valid, which is up to the issuing authority.

Dutch driving licenses have photo-ID as long as I know, and you also have to replace it every 10 years (and when you become 70, you need a doctor's statement about your health). When I returned to the Netherlands from Germany, I could keep my German licence until it was ten years old, and then it was replaced by a Dutch licence.

My guess would be you had the choice of renewing your Dutch photo ID, or taking out a UK licence.

I lost a bit in the process (which I had previously received for free): a Dutch licence for a passenger car goes to 3,500 kg maximum weight, while a German licence goes to 7,000 kg. Every German should be able to drive their personal Panzer, after all. I didn't bother with the extra paperwork needed to keep the "light truck" part as I hadn't used it once in those 10 years, despite advertising with all my friends that I'd be happy to drive their moving truck. At least I kept the extra perk of being allowed to tow trailers of unlimited weight.

I'm entitled to drive various classes of vehicle that someone getting their licence today would not, due to changes in the legislation (vehicles up to 7,500kg (with a trailer up to 750kg), for example).

 

[Lord Emsworth]

21/24

Magistrates, political parties and their members, and Arkwright. Those are popular misses at least.

 

[metacristi]

more one for UK people but anyone else have a stab at it

I got 23 out of 24

http://i100.independent.co.uk/artic...nship-test-most-young-people-cant--gJ0v-H6BQx

24/24... At the second attempt of course

I closed the webpage after I made 4-5 mistakes (in the first 12 questions) and I started again. In my defence 2 of those were completely silly, I knew the correct answer but I checked something else. I hope they do not take seriously the results of the online test