Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Life In the UK Citizenship Test

I may have mentioned it recently that I've been studying for a test that will allow me to become a British citizen?  I've lived in the UK for the past (nearly) 13 years and when I moved here, I was told that I would be naturalised automatically if I lived here continuously for 10 years.  But 7 years into that period of time, the government changed the rules. 

New rules state that I'd have to pass this Life in the UK test.  So I bought a book, I never opened it.  The test changed to something else and made my book obsolete.  I bought another book, I half-heartedly read some of the material.  What made the test more ridiculous than ever was the practice tests that were included in the back of the book... I did some of them with N.  (and N is a British citizen, born and raised!) And N and I managed to pass and fail the same amount of these practice tests.  Because some of the questions the government expects me to know is knowledge that most British citizens doesn't have!  I'm going to include some example questions below, see how well you do!

A couple of weeks ago, I did finally book my citizenship test and managed to make it to a testing centre.  Despite feeling fairly well prepared beforehand, I was very nervous.  I always have some light test anxiety, but I was really stressing the morning of my test.  For no reason, as it turns out, because I flew through the questions in a record time, was the first person to complete the test and therefore was the first person to be told that (after filling in more paperwork, paying an exorbitant amount of money and attending a citizenship ceremony!) I was one step closer to becoming a British citizen.  So, well done me, hey? I'm quite proud of that and I will soon be a happy dual-citizen like my two beautiful boys. 

Each test comprises of 24 questions. You can get no more than 6 questions wrong in order to pass.  This isn't a proper practice test that appears in the book though they are all questions from the book, I'm just picking out the harder questions as a challenge to you all! :)  I'm going to cut it in half and only give you 12 questions and allow only 3 wrong answers. Let me know how you did!

Highlight the bit next to 'ANSWER' to see the correct answer!

1) When was the current voting age set? ANSWER: D) 1969

a) 1956 b) 1982 c) 1945 d) 1969


2) Where does the Scottish Parliament meet? ANSWER: A) Holyrood

a) Holyrood b) Senedd c) Chequers d) Stormont


3) How many young people (up to the age of 19) are there in the UK? ANSWER C) 15 million

a) 5 million b) 10 million c) 15 million d) 20 million


4) In which year did the NHS begin? ANSWER: B) 1948

a) 1939 b) 1948 c) 2000 d) 1922


5) How much has the UK population grown by (in percentage terms) since 1971? ANSWER: A) 7.7%

a) 7.7% b) 2.9% c) 34.1% d) 23.5% 


6) What is the name of the official record of proceedings in parliament? ANSWER: B) Hansard

a) Parliament News b) Hansard c) Westminster Hour d) The Recorder


7) A terrible famine occurred in Ireland during the the middle of which decade? ANSWER: C) 1840s

a) 1880s b) 1860s c) 1840s d) 1890s


8) When is Mother's Day? ANSWER: D) The Sunday 3 weeks before Easter

a) The Sunday four weeks before Easter b) The Saturday four weeks before Easter c) The Sunday one week before Easter d) The Sunday three weeks before Easter


9) How much of the money for local authority services is raised through council tax? ANSWER: B) 20%

a) 10% b) 20% c) 25% d) 35%


10) When did women first get the right to vote? ANSWER: B) 1918

a) 1888 b) 1918 c) 1928 d) 1945



11) What is the distance from John O'Groats on the north coast of Scotland to Land's End in the south-west corner of England?  ANSWER: C) Approx 870 miles

a) Approximately 1,100 miles b) Approximately 500 miles c) Approximately 870 miles d) Approximately 1,310 miles


12) When did the Church of England come into existence? ANSWER: B) In the 1530s

a) In the 1640s b) In the 1530s c) In the 1440s d) In the 1750s

How well did you do?

14 comments:

  1. How would I even go about GUESSING 2, 6, 7 & 11? Congrats Clover on being a dual citizen! :D

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  2. no.10 is C, right? Other than that one, I had no idea of the answers for any of the questions! And yes, I'm British!

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    1. No, 'fraid not! It's actually B) 1918. In 1918, women over the age of 30 were given the right to vote and then 10 years later, finally both men and women of equal age (21) were given the right to vote.

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  3. How are we supposed to know this?! No idea on any of them - congrats on getting closer to proper citizenship! :)

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    1. I did choose particularly hard questions! There are a bunch of easier questions that most people would know like, when is Christmas celebrated? Where does the Prime Minister live? What does 'NHS' stand for? that sort of thing. But also so much of the practice questions I had to review were of statistics and numbers and dates and horrible things.

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  4. I only knew the answers to 2 and 10!

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  5. Wow, I'd only be able to answer two of those questions: 10 and 12.

    Well done on passing! :)

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  6. Congratulations on passing your test! Silly questions and all. (When is Mother's Day? Seriously???)

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    1. Thanks Ali! I had no idea that Mother's Day changed every year - but it's the Sunday 3 weeks before Easter :)

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  7. I wouldn't be able to answer any of them! lol

    Congratulations on passing :D

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HI! Thank you for leaving a comment, you've just become my new best friend :)