Everything You Need to Know about the Citizenship Test

If you are trying to become a U.S. citizen, you will need to pass the naturalization test, also known as the U.S. Citizenship test. We at AELS would like to provide you with all the information you need to know to be prepared for this test.

The U.S. Citizenship test contains the principles of American democracy, the American system of government, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. It is conducted like a one-on-one interview and has four sections: speaking, reading, writing, and civics.

During the test, you will meet the USCIS officer that will be giving you your test and the speaking section will begin. The officer will ask youquestions to assess your eligibility for citizenship. You will need to be able to understand what the officer is asking and be able to respond correctly. Once your speaking section is over, you will begin the reading section.

The reading section asks you to read one sentence out of three to the officer in English. You have three chances to read the sentences correctly. Don’t worry if you have an accent, it will not cause you to fail. You just need to be able to make sure that the officer can fully understand the meaning of the sentence. When you have completed this section, you will move on to the writing section.

The writing section of the tests requires you to write one sentence. The sentence must be written in English and the officer must be able to understand the meaning. You will have three chances to write your sentence. You may be allowed to make some capitalization, spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors as long as the officer can still understand what the sentence means. You will only fail if your sentence is not clear enough to be read, if you write a different sentence or words, or if you write an abbreviation for a dictated word. When writing numbers, you can either spell the word out (four) or write the digit (4).

For the last section of the test, civics, you are asked up to ten questions from a list of 100 questions prepared by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The officer will ask you verbally and you must answer verbally. To pass the last section, you will need to answer 6 out of the 10 questions correctly. The last section of the test is meant to evaluate your knowledge of U.S. history and government. After you complete all sections of the test, you will receive your decision.

If you are preparing to take the U.S. Citizenship test, we offer a U.S. Citizenship Test Preparation class. To find out more information about our preparation class, go to our U.S. Citizenship Preparation page now!

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Published on October 27, 2020

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