Citizenship Test

Jump to Comments

My wife became a US citizen last week, completing an arduous naturalization process that involved overcoming many difficult hurdles (not the least of which was marrying me).  She had to fill out multiple and lengthy forms, spend a lot of money, pass a background check, and take a civics test.  Since she passed the background check I can only assume that no one in the FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, DHS, or ICE reads this blog.  

As a dutiful husband, I initially offered to help her study for the civics test, but I thought better of it after flipping through the official US Citizenship and Immigration Services study guide, Learn About the United States – Quick Civics Lessons for the New Naturalization Test.  It’s amazing how little our government actually knows about our government.  Here are some sample questions from the text book, along with the official answers.  I’ve also taken the liberty of adding my own “unofficial” answers for each one.  

• Q:  What does the Constitution do?
• Official A:  Sets up the government, defines the government, or protects basic rights of Americans.
• Unofficial A:  It collects dust while being roundly ignored by those sworn to uphold it.

 

• Q:  What is the economic system in the United States?
• Official A:  Capitalist economy or market economy.
• Unofficial A:  Participatory fascism, or creeping socialism.

 

• Q:  What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
• Official A:  Checks and balances or separation of powers.
• Unofficial A:  Nothing. (I found it interesting that the study guide actually underlines “one” in the question…as if they were going out of their way to distinguish the problem of one branch becoming too powerful from the total non-issue of all branches becoming too powerful).

 

• Q:  Who makes federal laws?
• Official A:  Congress, Senate and House of Representatives, or legislature.
• Unofficial A:  An army of unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch who write thousands of pages of regulations each year, each of which carries the force of law.

 

• Q:  Who does a US Senator represent?
• Official A:  All people of the state.
• Unofficial A:  His largest campaign donors.

 

• Q:  What does the judicial branch do?
• Official A:  Reviews laws, explains laws, resolves disputes, or decides if a law goes against the Constitution.
• Unofficial A:  All of the above (except for that last one).  Also acceptable would be “provides pseudo-intellectual rationalizations to allow government to exceed its constitutional limits.”

 

• Q:  What is the highest court in the United States?
• Official A:  The Supreme Court.
• Unofficial A:  The latest Gallup poll.

 

• Q:  Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states.  What is one power of the states?
• Official A:  Provide schooling and education, provide protection (police), provide safety (fire department), give a driver’s license, or approve zoning and land use.
• Unofficial A:  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. (Evidently new citizens don’t need to know about the tenth amendment).

This is not to say that all the test questions are wrong.  For example, USCIS does manage to correctly identify the colors of the American flag (red, white, and blue).  And in some ways the new test is an improvement over the old test, which included questions like these:

• Q:  Where does freedom of speech come from?
• Official A:  The Bill of Rights.
• Unofficial A:  From our nature as human beings.

 

• Q:  What US Citizenship and Immigration Services form is used to apply for naturalized citizenship?
• Official A:  Form N-400 (Application for Naturalization).
• Unofficial A:  Same as Official A, but I thought it was funny that the people working for USCIS were so wrapped up in their own bureaucracy that they thought all new citizens should be able to reference government paperwork by name – especially since the form in question has to be submitted long before the citizenship test is even taken.

 

• Q:  What is the most important right granted to US citizens?
• Official A:  The right to vote.
• Unofficial A:  Rights are inherent, not granted.  But even if they were, are you kidding me?  The right to vote would be number one?

 

• Q:  Name one of the purposes of the United Nations.
• Official A:  For countries to discuss and try to resolve world problems or to provide economic aid to many countries.
• Unofficial A:  To transfer wealth from the American taxpayer to corrupt foreign governments.  And as an aside, can someone point to the article of the Constitution that authorizes the UN?  If not, then why should it be part of this particular test?

 

• Q:  Can the Constitution be changed?
• Official A:  Yes.
• Unofficial A:  Sure, but why go through the hassle of changing it when you can just act like an elected official and ignore it altogether? 

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad my wife is now an American.  But during this process I realized that it’s probably a good thing I am an American by birth, because there’s no way they’d ever let someone like me become a citizen.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tags: citizenship, immigration, test, USCIS