U.S. Citizenship Test To Get Rigorous Makeover

As the Trump Administration continues its focus on enhancing legal immigration to the United States, a big portion of that journey might become a little more difficult. The new head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has become critical of the current U.S. citizenship test and is looking to revamp the exam.

The proposed changes could bring back more demanding questions and require more questions to be answered correctly. As of this year, the current test has ten questions, with only six needed to be answered correctly. But there are new recommendations to extend the test and even made it more comprehensive.

Amanda Head of Just The News says the current format has not been conducive to learning American values or assimilating with our culture.

"It is quite simplistic, and unfortunately, fosters memorization over any type of meaningful absorption of American values," she says.

Indeed, the test has become too easy and basically is a memory game. You get the questions, memorize the answers, and take the test. It is not uncommon for people to score 10 out of 10 on the test, simply because memorizing answer is not hard.

But this proposed change eliminates that whole possibility and forces potential citizens to learn not just American history. It forces them to learn out values as a society and makes more effort to assimilate them into America.

"The feelings of this Administration, and how much they value legal immigration...people who come here legally, support the country, and assimilate to our values...they want to be integral to their community and their country...then I think this has to be done," says Head.

The new idea is simple. It would make the test 20 questions, needing 12 answered correctly. Which equates to the same ratio.

"But that could also increase, so that could be a higher threshold...I would like to see it go up to 14," Head says.

She adds that other changes might come in the form of making the test more comprehensive, meaning you actually learn something.