I failed my life in Britain mock test

[Britishfailure]

So I am a European citizen who has lived in London for 3 decades married to a Brit and raised 2 children. I have been toying with the idea of citizenship I light
of the Reform “we want to deport you all” rhetoric.

I took the mock citizenship test tonight and scored 71% which was not enough to pass. However, I made my British DH and children take it too and I actually scored way higher than they did.

The test is honestly crazy. Questions about roast beef. Honestly so weird. I think I won’t bother becoming a British citizen as I really don’t like roast beef 😂

I got 92% on the first one. I didn’t know when Habeas Corpus became law (I mean I did vaguely but the answers are all within 10 years) and I chose Vikings as invading Britain after the Roman’s left, which I guess they did but not until later 😂
I’m going to try a few more but tend to think based on first one they don’t seem ludicrously hard and certainly stuff you could learn but that lots of people won’t remember the historic dates and won’t necessarily know details of the legal system.

To be fair a lot of countries' citizenship tests have bizarre questions that equally baffle the natives. The Swiss one particularly springs to mind.

I don't understand the outrage, many countries have tests like this.
The test is introducing some basic topics (institutions, some cultural references, paralympics to show that disabled people are valued members of the society) and testing combination of language skills, ability to learn and willingness to do so.

I got 75% and I'm not British 🤷 People I know who have done the actual test do study for it. Questions vary from the reasonable to the absurd, I do wonder who the fuck they outsourced it to.

This made me laugh:
What is the name of the centrepiece to the Remembrance Day service located in Whitehall, London?
Cenotaph
Stonehenge
Grimsby
Scunthorpe

Wait until you age out of the test being required to apply :)

I just did a practise test and got 92% - had to guess a couple of dates. Who knows when Robert Walpole became PM? And I’ve never heard of the Glorious Revolution! 1688 apparently. Born and bred (if we’re allowed to say that any more) here in 1954.
Some very random questions!

Just done another.....same score.

One of the questions was "select two popular social network sites," !!

Another was "what can carry on be associated with"

I'm glad they've chosen the important questions 😂

There’s a handy site where you can do loads of mocks - me and my friend practised them with her spouse and they are very repetitive. Easy to pass if you just do a load of them.

The questions vary government to government - it becomes quite political. I think it is less about having a passing understanding of British life, and more showing your willingness to study arbitrary factoids. I took the test a few years ago, and made flash cards that I looked at a week in advance..

it is the same in other countries -my home country has a similar exam and there are regular articles on how few native born would actually pass the test.

I have a vague recollection that the Glorious Revolution was something to do with William and Mary, but no real idea of its significance. Definitely wasn’t anything we covered in school.

I’ve done an equivalent test in another country, they’re essentially testing are you willing to put in a tiny bit of effort and go through the guidebooks/practice tests and can you speak the language good enough to do that. A good thing really. Like the driving theory, it’s just a case of putting the effort in and those that have passed would probably struggle without a bit of a refresher study.

I got 67%.

What tickled me was it was history history history then a random question about TV licenses.

I did & passed 3 tests.
I'm Scottish with very little English history knowledge & an inability to remember dates so I don't think they're very hard but are interestingly wide ranging -quite specific questions about not Christian religions surprised me.

I’ve just tried 3 and didn’t get above 50% in any of them.

Lots of it seemed like things I learned 20 years ago in history and have evidently forgotten.

I’m not sure why having an encyclopaedic knowledge of all British history and legal events ever would be particularly helpful to being a British citizen or have any impact on your day to day life once you gained citizenship. Just seems like a colossal waste of time.

92% here, though I was lucky with some of the questions - like others, I knew which century Robert Warpole was prime minister, but couldn't have given his dates. I'm told it was a lot harder about 20 years ago - you really had to work to pass then, and there was a substantial book you had to memorise (as the friends taking it, all of whom had PhD's, pointed out)/

No not really. You just have to buy and read rhe life in the UK test book. It’s all in there and pretty easy.

Agree it’s a ridiculous and useless test. Also making people from English speaking countries do an English test. It’s all about the private agencies making money now, which would be palatable if they were half way competent in their decision making. I know someone who works in immigration removal and they say while the majority of people they escort are quite deserving of their removal and shouldn’t be here, a significant minority are distressing victims of home office incompetence.

Maybe we should all have to sit it before being given our ballot paper?

I just took a mock test. Sorry but I didn’t pass. The questions are random. And definitely were not all basic things brits know!

It was William and Mary replacing James II/VII as monarchs. They marched on London, James’ troops dispersed and he fled to France so there wasn’t a real battle over it but beyond that I don’t remember anything about it. I’m sure some details of it came up in some random historical fiction.

9 out of 24! 38%.

That's mortifying. I'm a Brit.

Most people who want to pass any test DO study for it.
If being a British citizen matters, then people will spend time and study. Is it a valuable enough prize for you?

Effort should be needed. If you want to be British, learn the language and read the small book.

Apparently I passed with 83%.

It really will just depend what you are interested in and to what extent random facts stick with you. A lot of the questions are about specific historic events. If that’s something you find interesting and maybe you visit a lot of stately homes/castles/other historic buildings and remains and maybe watch documentaries on or read about then naturally you will know more answers than if your interest is in something else. Like we watch a lot of science and history based stuff but would be hopeless if asked about UK geography in any detail.

I’m British born but I also have New Zealand citizenship as I lived there for a long time. I had to do the NZ citizenship test which caused much hilarity with my kiwi friends when they tried the mock tests and couldn’t answer them. If you want to know anything about the Treaty of Waitangi I’m your woman - just don’t ask me anything about the Kings and Queens of England.