Can you pass Life in the UK Test?

[jennymanara]

Anyone applying for citizenship has to pass this test. It is based on things that people are supposed to know if they live in the UK. Can you pass it?

lifeintheuktestweb.co.uk/tests/

I had to take the test in real life about 10 years ago and got all the questions right. But I did study for it and English is my first language. A Japanese lady sat next to me during the test seemed to struggle ( it took her a long time). It's not only about knowing the answers, but having the language skills for the test as well!

@jennymanara - that threw me off as well. I think people confuse arranged with forced marriages. One is legal and in some cultures not uncommon, the other one is not legal.

@proudestofmums
I passed and I used to be a presenting officer. Smug face.

Both me & DH failed 😳

Oh the wording is really annoying me now!

"How many senior MPs are appointed by the PM?"

As what? The PM doesn't appoint MPs they are elected! Do you mean appointed as government ministers? And what does "senior" mean?

Passed!

Just didn't know what year the War of the Roses started.

I passed the two I tried. I would have been very disappointed to fail as many of the questions were very straightforward.

Did tests 1 & 2, passed both, got a couple wrong in each test.

Hadrien's Wall?????

Some programmes are broadcasted in English

No no no, I'm failing the question setters for not using the English language correctly.

18/24 so I passed.

I passed 100% right.

Failed, 66%. Can't help thinking you'd need exceptionally good English as a second language to even have a hope.

Some questions are strange, such as who directed Four Weddings and a Funeral.

I tried test 1 and passed with 75%. I need to brush up on my history!

Thanks for posting it, OP, it was quite fun!

That’s a terrible website - not official and apparently proofread by someone who was working in a hurry and has English as their third language.

I did tests 1 and 2 and passed both easily. I'm Irish, have never lived in the UK and have only been to Wales once and Northern Ireland a few times.

I took it a few years ago (lived here since early 70s). I am extremely ‘English’ all schooling and university English lawyer etc. I found it tough. Lots of really irrelevant random stuff which I don’t think many would know and then things like memorising the dates of all national days etc.

One brilliant question ‘who started (or maybe in whose reign) the RAF’. As well as three likely answers the fourth option was ‘Henry the Eighth’. That actually still makes me laugh but it’s obvs testing if you know when Henry viii ruled I suppose.

Oh and one about the names of the Houses of Parliament and one option was ‘House of Fraser’.

It made me think how bloody tough for many it is ! And why wouldn’t you think perhaps ‘House of Fraser’. Minefield.

Good luck anyone taking it.

It is the only free website where you can do practice tests and it has study information to help people. Sure I am sure you can get better proofread tests if you pay. There is no official practice tests. The only official site is how to book the test and buy a book.

My husband is currently doing the two I failed dismally and passed the first one with flying colours. This will turn into a competition tonight

I cleared it in 2013 or 2014, I can’t remember exactly. I am pretty sure I got all the questions right (they don’t give you an actual score). There is a book, you read it, and it is fairly easy to pass especially if like me, you are a historian by profession AND English is very much your first language. DH thinks he got one question wrong (something about highest grossing movie franchises!) but he too cleared the test.
On the arranged marriage thing though, I am not sure why it’s unacceptable. If the marriage is coerced then it’s a forced marriage (whatever form that coercion takes) but otherwise while i personally wouldn’t do it, I don’t massively see the problem. It’s an elaborate form of cultural dating. However, as I said, there is a fine line between arranged marriages and forced marriages sometimes and that is clearly illegal.

The test has two functions. The lesser one is to teach some important and relevant pieces of information about life in the UK.

The more important but less widely acknowledged one is to check that you are capable of going out and getting a book, reading it, memorising various random pieces of information in English, turning up at a named venue at a specific time and demonstrating that you have learned the information and can correctly interpret questions in English (or, in theory, Welsh/Scots Gaelic). Broadly speaking it’s a crude test of employability in the open market. If you can learn the population of the UK in 1800 and the number of people who died on the first day of the Somme, then you can probably absorb the knowledge required for an entry level job.

There are issues around disability discrimination of course. In theory if you’ve got a diagnosed learning disability you can be exempted but I’m very sceptical about how that works in practice.

@potol I think the question is unclear. Yes arranged marriages are perfectly legal. But many british people would not find them acceptable. And coercion in terms of pressure to accept an arranged marriage in a family where parents want this to happen, is from everyone I know who has an arranged marriage, pretty common place.

Failed. They don’t teach the English Court system, or English history in Scotland, so why would I know about the War of the Roses?

I took a few - passed 3 and failed 1. Some of the questions seem obviously designed for rote learning - weird ones about when 'farmers' arrived in Britain, for instance.

I can't see how knowing what kind of movie Wallace and Gromit is should matter. I think having a few general history questions is good, but not many British people would know the specific dates for kings and wars and so on, as opposed to the approximate time period. (I'm a history geek so was fine with most of them.) The ones I got wrong were mostly about geography and sport, and a couple about courts.

Not blaming you personally for the quality of the website OP. I know it’s the only easy free website that you can do more than a few questions on, but there’s no denying that it’s terrible, and the fact that it’s so high up the Google ranking makes the test look even worse.