American IQ: Questions from U.S. citizenship test challenge your patriotic acumen
Let’s celebrate America’s birthday with a patriotic quiz. As the country prepares to observe Independence Day on Wednesday, we gathered 10 questions from the civics portion of the test given to immigrants seeking to become naturalized citizens of the United States.
To pass, immigrants must answer six out of 10 correctly.
(They are also tested on English skills for speaking, reading and writing.)
This isn’t a pop quiz: The 10 are drawn from 100 questions that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posts on its website and publishes in booklets for studying purposes.
The civics test asks basic questions about American history and government. In other words, you should know the answers.
And, in case you find the test too easy, we’ve added to each question a bonus true-or-false component (to assess your knowledge of more obscure facts).
When you're done, click here for the answers.
The questions
1. To what do we show loyalty when we say the Pledge of Allegiance?
a. the state where you live
b. the president
c. Congress
d. the United States
Bonus
True or false: Francis Bellamy, who composed the pledge in 1892, was a Baptist minister and a socialist.
2. Where is the Statue of Liberty?
a. Long Island
b. New York Harbor
c. San Francisco Bay
d. Boston Harbor
Bonus
True or false: The Emma Lazarus poem that says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” was not originally part of the Statue of Liberty.
3. Why does the flag have 13 stripes?
a. because they represent the members of the Second Continental Congress
b. because it was considered lucky to have 13 stripes on the flag
c. because the stripes represent the original Colonies
d. because they represent the number of signatures on the U.S. Constitution
Bonus
True or false: The Flag Code prohibits the display of a flag with fewer than 50 stars.
4. Why did the colonists fight the British?
a. because they didn’t have self-government
b. all of these answers
c. because the British army stayed in their houses
d. because they paid high taxes
Bonus
True or false: About 5?percent of the men who served in the Continental Army were black, despite the fact that Congress initially barred them from service.
5. What did the Declaration of Independence do?
a. declared our independence from Great Britain
b. freed the slaves
c. declared our independence from France
d. gave women the right to vote
Bonus
True or false: The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4, 1776.
6. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
a. ended World War I
b. freed slaves in most Southern states
c. gave women the right to vote
d. gave the United States independence from Great Britain
Bonus
True or false: Abraham Lincoln, author of the emancipation, is entombed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
7. If both the president and the vice president can no longer serve, who becomes president?
a. the president pro tempore
b. the speaker of the House
c. the secretary of state
d. the secretary of the treasury
Bonus
True or false: A marble facade gives the White House, the home of the president, its color.
8. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?
a. make treaties
b. create an army
c. provide schooling and education
d. coin or print money
Bonus
True or false: The word democracy does not appear in the Constitution.
9. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
a. 100
b. 200
c. 435
d. 441
Bonus
True or false: Members of Congress don’t pay Social Security taxes.
10. What are two cabinet-level positions?
a. secretary of homeland security and secretary of the treasury
b. secretary of health and human services, and secretary of the Navy
c. secretary of weather and secretary of energy
d. secretary of the interior and secretary of history
Bonus
True or false: The United States was 157 years old when it had its first female cabinet member.
