Could you pass a US citizenship test?

[Stupefied]

I think the point is that new citizens should take the time to learn basic facts about our country. Otherwise they'll become Occupy Wall Street squatters.

I also agree that a person should know the basics of what a country was founded on, believes in, and it's history before joining. If a person is going to leave their native country for another they should carefully make an informed decision before joining that country. I don't see the benefit of many of the questions on the test though, or the test as whole. Knowing the right answer and understanding the question/answer is quite different in my opinion. I think perhaps a few required courses in explaining United States history, customs, and laws would be far more beneficial than a test like this one.

As for the Occupy Movement, I won't delve too deeply into that as the people I know who are associated with it have few complaints or goals in common and that makes me not take it too seriously. Though to be fair, free speech and the belief that a single person has the ability to change the government and its course are a couple of the things that the US is supposed to be about.

Also, thanks for responding. Though I have but a few posts, you are the first to acknowledge my thoughts on a topic.

 

[erwinl]

In the end it turned out my wife could come with me to the States.

She ended up with 62 right answers. Basicly because she isn't really interested in politics and more or less got all of those questions wrong.

 

[akama1]

80/96, and I've never studied US history. I need to thank the Simpsons for some answers (homer leaving his taxes till April, Apu and slavery " there were many reasons for the civil war, just say slavery, slavery it is" ) . And I can not name the dates of the civil war

Got dates, years of representation ( only knew 4 years for pres) and anyone writing anything other than constitution or declaration wrong.

Ps. I'm Australian

 

[akama1]

91/96

Goofed up on this:

"Barack Obama is:
a) A Communist
b) A Muslim
c) A Kenyan usuper
d) DEATH PANELS! Ermm, all of the above"

Bwah hahahhahahahahhahaaaaa
Gold
That is all

 

[Darat]

I also agree that a person should know the basics of what a country was founded on, believes in, and it's history before joining. ...snip....

Which is why such a test for the UK would be totally wrong, to be British is to embrace your ignorance about how the country is run or its history, it is rather unBritish to have knowledge of these things. (Never mind that we deliberately don't write stuff down so we can't be held to it.)

For a truly British test it should be more along the lines of

"Is Cheryl getting back with Ashley?"

or

"According to the Daily Mail which of the following causes cancer?"

a) Air
b) Water
c) House prices
d) All the above

and

"According to the Daily Mail which of the following prevent cancer?"

a) Air
b) Water
c) House prices
d) All of the above


(For those curious to check whether they could pass a British citizen test*, the answer to the latter two questions is d) )





*We do actually now have one and of course most of the British born "Send them all back" brigade would fail it.

 

[Darat]

Like others I gave up but I was doing quite well up to around the 30 mark. One I got wrong was about "selective service" - I am amazed that it is tolerated.

 

[akama1]

Like others I gave up but I was doing quite well up to around the 30 mark. One I got wrong was about "selective service" - I am amazed that it is tolerated.

I completely forgot about that one, wtf I did not realize that still existed

 

[Beady]

It is still utterly absurd that they thought the most prominent threat of the Soviet union was their political ideology, not the fact that they had the power and potential motivation to nuke the hell out of the west (and we nuke back, and so on).

Well, I suppose you can be forgiven for not knowing that no one has ever sworn to preserve, protect and defend the United States. Instead, they swear (or affirm) to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. The idieology has always come first.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I got to the end by breaking it into three bits.

I'd not have slogged through the whole thing in one go though, it would have put me to sleep.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I couldn't get through it by any means whatsoever. I got a browser error within about thirty questions every time I tried, resulting in dumping the results so far. The test may or may not be reasonable, but the user interface the CSM has inflicted on it is horrible.

Dave

 

[cwalner]

Like others I gave up but I was doing quite well up to around the 30 mark. One I got wrong was about "selective service" - I am amazed that it is tolerated.

meh - The US still retains the right to draft soldiers in time of war. Nixon abolished the practice of peacetime draft, but you still have to register in case we go to war. In fact there were some complaints from guardsmen and reservists about an undue burden placed on them because Bush did not use the draft when he went to war in Iraq.

I completely forgot about that one, wtf I did not realize that still existed

I was reminded on my 18th birthday. I was an exchange student, living in Spain, and my mom forwarded me a birthday card from my 'uncle'. Turned out it was from Uncle Sam.

 

[Mojo]

87

 

[Beerina]

Some issues with the questions: Capitalism arises naturally from freedom. Our system is freedom, not capitalism.

Nothing is stopping people, it being a free nation, from banding together to create their own communist factories and farms and whatever. People actually do this.


That people even talk about capitalism as a "system" shows you've already lost part of the philosophical battle, with the understood background that it can be swapped out at will by government mandate.

 

[stokes234]

78 out of 96. Made some silly mistakes, just plain didn't know some of it.

 

[cwalner]

I am finding these scores very interesting. As I mentioned earlier I only missed two, and both those were ones I had narrowed down to two choices but then got wrong.

I though that the test was trivial, yet many intelligent posters, who do not happen to live in the US, are missing a non-trivial number of questions (while still 'passing' easily). It is eye-opening to see how much of the knowledge that I take for granted as universal is in fact very contextual. I also shudder to think what my score my be on a similar exam for citizenship in the other countries based on this revelation.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I got as far as question 73 before the latest crash, by which time I'd got 68 right answers. Does this mean I can cash in on the trust fund that the freeman-on-the-land lot say all you Americans get just for being born? There didn't seem to be a question about that in the test, for some reason.

Dave

 

[NotJesus]

meh - The US still retains the right to draft soldiers in time of war. Nixon abolished the practice of peacetime draft, but you still have to register in case we go to war.

Just a small clarification -- Registration was not required after Nixon abolished the draft, until it was reinstated by Carter. I remember this because I happened to be in the first group that had to register under Carter. There was some fear at the time that we were going to be drafted to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, but that never happened.

Carter's proclamation.

 

[Mojo]

I got as far as question 73 before the latest crash, by which time I'd got 68 right answers. Does this mean I can cash in on the trust fund that the freeman-on-the-land lot say all you Americans get just for being born?

Only if you supply a long-form birth certificate.

 

[cwalner]

Just a small clarification -- Registration was not required after Nixon abolished the draft, until it was reinstated by Carter. I remember this because I happened to be in the first group that had to register under Carter. There was some fear at the time that we were going to be drafted to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, but that never happened.

Carter's proclamation.

Thank you. I was equally concerned, when two years after I registered, President Bush decided to invade Iraq*

*I just love that that last clause is vague enough so that it doesn't quite away my age.

 

[davefoc]

On the economic system question, I picked "none of these answers", I'm pretty sure it's a mix between socialism and capitalism? Of course capitalism was correct.
...

I figured somebody would over think that. Sometimes you just got to go with where you think the person asking the question is coming from. OTOH, sometimes when you do that, you get the question wrong because they were going for the more thoughtful answer. Oh well.

I got 93/96, which says more about my patience to put up with a ridiculously annoying test format than my knowledge. I missed one because of a misclick I guess. I know we don't have a draft but somehow it thought I'd clicked on one of the answers that we did which I guess I did but it must have been a davefoc in an alternative universe. I also missed James Madison as an author of the federalist papers. That was stupid but I just had a moment when Thomas Jefferson sounded right.

An interesting question to me is what the score of the non-Americans that participate in this forum would be. I think most of them would score very highly, certainly better than a bunch of American centric Americans would do on a similar quiz for their countries. But I would certainly not recommend they take the test. I wouldn't want to be associated with recommending anything that annoying.

Some issues with the questions: Capitalism arises naturally from freedom. Our system is freedom, not capitalism.

Nothing is stopping people, it being a free nation, from banding together to create their own communist factories and farms and whatever. People actually do this.


That people even talk about capitalism as a "system" shows you've already lost part of the philosophical battle, with the understood background that it can be swapped out at will by government mandate.

I agree with this, at least to some degree, but I think your answer shows phenomenal over thinking of the question.