Americans Can’t Pass the US Citizenship Test but They Can Vote

By | April 28, 2014

Awkward: Americans can’t pass the US citizenship test

In a video posted earlier this week, members of the Immigrant Archive Project — an oral history project that collects the stories of American immigrants — did a series of “man-on-the-street” interviews with passersby in Miami.

The twist: they asked questions from the US citizenship test that every immigrant is required to take in order to naturalize. Not to spoil anything, but the people they interviewed — all of whom are native-born American citizens — didn’t fare too well:

See video at http://youtu.be/Za4ZZN0SekE 

To put this in context, as of December 2013, 91 percent of immigrants who took the full citizenship test passed it by getting six of ten questions correct. (They’re given a list of 100 possible questions and answers to study beforehand.)

Polls of the American public show that native-born citizens aren’t exactly “A” students in civics

By contrast, of the 15 people whom the Immigrant Archive Project people interviewed, only one got six out of ten questions correct: that’s a pass rate of less than 7 percent…

Source: Vox

4 thoughts on “Americans Can’t Pass the US Citizenship Test but They Can Vote

  1. Ken Roberts

    Yes it is a sad day when more than half the country does not know who the vice president is, every one should know it is Chucky Cheese and the President is Ronald McDonald . I took a Constitutional test and passed with about 80% which I felt was bad enough to have such a low score, of course that was with a few questions I felt was out of the scope of the reason for the test . We should do better . Me included

    Reply
  2. Ken Roberts

    They do not teach American history like they used to either and that could be one of the reasons for such a low score .and the civics class is also at fault . I am sure apathy counts for most of it .

    Reply
  3. nmsusieq

    I just finished taking 2 self tests for citizenship. I got 88% on 50 questions. So some of us born here citizens can pass. But maybe that was because when I went to school they taught U.S. History as Ken said above.

    Reply
  4. A_Hippy_Hillbillie

    What’s even more amazing is what we have at our fingertips; all the information that is available to us!!!

    Reply

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