Are you a British Citizen?The question of citizenship has come up again because the heir apparent has said that new immigrants should do community service as well as pass a test.
This test is 45 minutes to answer 24 multiple choice questions and you have to achieve a score of 75%. Indirectly it also tests whether you can use a computer. It is actually much more a test of comprehension—have you read and understood the book—than knowledge, but in that respect I suppose it means that the candidates must have a good grasp of English (or Welsh or Gaelic).
The cost is £10 for the book and £34 for each attempt at the test. Most of the practice tests cost money, this is one of the few that doesn’t. Try it for yourself, this is how well I did.
- %age of population under 19—no idea but can make a sensible guess.
- Women’s vote—OK, I know that one.
- Causes of crime—again a sensible guess.
- Population—a sensible guess (that is the problem with multiple choice questions)
- Largest ethnic minority—I got this wrong.
- Census—well I ought to know this one having worked with it for a number of years.
- Religion—I got this wrong as well.
- Width of country—guess again but why expect them to learn obsolete units of measurement.
- Language—I would dispute “widely spoken”
- Sport—not surprisingly I got this wrong.
- Bank holidays—I forgot to count May Day.
- Easter Eggs—I have no idea and I don’t suppose many other people do either.
- Boxing Day—I know that, but celebrated is an exaggeration.
- Prime Minister—I got the answer right but technically it is wrong.
- Cabinet—I got this wrong.
- Lords—A good guess again.
- Queen—OK but again a technicality likely to trip up a foreigner.
- EU foundation—ignoring the spelling mistake, I have no idea. A random guess.
- EU size—I know that.
- Age for public office—I got this wrong.
The site failed to add up my score but I got 12/20 = 60%. When do I get deported?
Webmaster
I got 8/20, so I am definitely off to sunnier climates – yay free emigration – do I get to choose where I go!
Seriously though, I would like to dispute some of the answers. For example:
1. Abuse of substances – to my knowledge Television is not a substance unless you are referring to the object rather than the programmes aired. In which case what would you have to do to abuse this object – maybe act like a rock star and throw it through a window which could be considered to be criminal damage could it not. But even if we ignore this point, there could be more than 1 correct answer to this question, we are after all talking about the /abuse/ of substances not the /use/ of them, which surely makes alcohol a candidate.
2. Easter – as this is originally a pagan festival and Easter is in fact the pagan god of fertility, is it not most likely that the giving of eggs is a sign of fertility not the coming of spring. In either case, does this really effect a persons right to live in the country. After all to contribute to society and the economy of this country I don’t think you need to know. I have certainly never been asked this in a job interview!
3. Religion – does this take into account all the people who answered Jedi when asked?
4. When I last checked, after football, golf was the most watched sport in this country. But I may be wrong.
Hi, I would dispute that Easter was a pagan festival. Certainly the time of year when (at the top of the world) everything comes back to life from the apparent death of winter has been venerated ever since man thought about these things (perhaps 50,000 years). This fits in nicely with the resurrection of Christ so why turn away a free lunch. The name came from the pagan goddess Eostre and the festival coincided (for just the same reason) but we are stuck with that sort of thing in a lot of places. I am not going to give up Wednesdays just because it is named after Wodin. Eostre was associated with fertility (hence oestrogen etc.) but that fits in with the season of new birth as well. There is a good article about it here. But, ultimately, I agree that it has little to do with Britishness.