As was scrolling through the blog today, I bumped into an interesting post dealing with immigration and immigration reform. I moved to the United States 8 years ago and am currently applying for citizenship. Once out paperwork is cleared, my family and I have to go to an immigration center where we will be questioned and tested. The "Citizenship Test" is basically an very brief overview of US history, civics, and geography, and you only need a 6/10 to pass. Many of the questions are relatively easy, but I have found some difficult questions in the mix, even for an AP history student. Here is a list of some of the harder questions. Test yourself!!!
1. How many amendments to the constitution are there?
2. Who becomes President if both the President and the Vice President die?
3. Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
4. Who said "Give me liberty, or give me death!"?
5. What was the 49th State to be added to the United States?
6. What are some of the requirements to become eligible for president?
7. How many Justices are there on the Supreme Court?
8. How many times can a Congressman/woman be elected?
9. Who wrote the "Star Spangled Banner"?
10. Name all the amendments that address voting rights.
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Answers:
1. 27
2. The speaker of the House
3. John G. Roberts
4. Patrick Henry
5. Alaska
6. He/she must be at least 35 years old, native born, and have lived in the US for at least 14 years.
7. 9
8. No limits!
9. Francis Scott Key
10. 15th, 19th, 24th, 26th
What did you get? Could you pass the test!?
Also, that post I referred to was Sierra's from early December.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the little quiz Andreas. I got the majority of them wrong... but the one question I found most interesting was the one about how many times congressmen and women can be elected. Why can they be constantly reelected while presidents are limited to only 2 terms? Also, I have the same question about Supreme Court Justices, since they can technically serve for life. In my opinion, I think it's best that political figures constantly cycle through Washington, that way our country can be exposed to newer and younger minds, instead of the old ones being recycled constantly.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the reasoning behind the president being limited to only 2 terms. It's to avoid having a leader become "president for life", curbing the potential for monopoly. In some states, governors and state legislators have term limits as well. However, there are no term limits for the Vice Presidency, Representatives, and Senators even though there has been calls for them to have term limits.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 1990s, reformers tried to enact congressional term limits in 24 states. However, the US Supreme Court ruled in May 1995 in the case U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton that it is unconstitutional for states to impose term limits on their federal Representatives or Senators. This explains why there are no term limits for congressmen and congresswomen. It's possible that the Court might change its mind in the future, but at the moment, it seems highly unlikely that this will change.
Ha I got numbers four and nine correct! Growing up in Virginia, we really admire Patrick Henry and Francis Scott Key, since they were from the area. There's actually a small college called Patrick Henry College near where I used to live. He was really cool person to learn about and I think sometimes we forget the magnitude of his demand of "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Cool post Andreas and good look with the naturalization process!
ReplyDeleteInteresting post Andreas, I had to pass the immigration test as a part of one of my boy scout merit badges. The only one I missed was who was eligible fro president. Some of the citizenship questions are very random and I don't even know the vast majority of them anymore, but if anyone wants to try out the citizenship test, here the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/quiz/learners/study-test/study-materials-civics-test/naturalization-self-test-1
I feel like immigrants are always being held to a higher standard than the average American, and I knew very few answers. I think that maybe there should be a different set of requirements to become a citizen, rather than knowing random facts about the government.
ReplyDeleteThis post is one of the most interesting! I got only two right which didn't surprise me, I didn't know many of the answers. But the choice of questions did surprise me, its interesting that the questions are based on American history rather than something else, I agree with Sean, the questions should be changed.
ReplyDelete