Hundreds of thousands of immigrants take the United States citizenship test each year and each year the number of applicants increases. About 5.6 million people became U.S. citizens between 2001 and 2010. To accommodate the growing number of applicants, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) changed the format of the test in 2008. The new test has speaking, reading, writing, and civics components. Changes to the test also include:
Standardization
The new test is standardized, which means that applicants in any region of the United States will have the same 100 civics test questions to study. During the test, applicants can be asked up to 10 out of the 100 questions. All questions are answered in English and the applicants are required to respond in English. Only 6 out of 10 questions need to be answered correctly.
The Questions
While some questions from the old test appear, many of the questions and answers are new. The questions are also more comprehensive and require extra thought. However, many of the questions have more than one right answer. In these cases, all of the acceptable answers are provided in the study book. The questions and answers are also shown exactly as they are worded by the USCIS.
The USCIS website provides more information on the citizenship test and free downloadable study materials.