Citizenship Exam!?

This may be stretching the topic just a little, but I'm sure many Spanish-speaking immigrants will have to deal with this at some point in the immigration process. In June, I started teaching a GED class in Spanish. In order to pass the exam, the students must pass a "Citizenship/Constitution" exam. As I was preparing for my class, I did a search to find what might be available on the internet to my students. I was surprised at the number of sites devoted to helping people pass the INS citizenship exam.

For those of you who do are United States citizens, like myself, I challenge you to look at some of these sites. Try taking the practice exam, and see what you think. Do knowing the answers to these questions help one be a better citizen? I will admit, it is nice to know some basic history of a country in which you are going to live. However, knowing the history of a country (or memorizing answers to one hundred questions) does not insure that a person will be a good citizen. And frankly, I couldn't answer some of the questions without doing some research or studying beforehand and I've lived in southern Illinois all of my life!

I don't mean for this article to be a critique of immigration policies. Yet, as a United States citizen I didn't have a clue as to how immigration operated. When I first looked at this test, I was surprised. For the GED, I believe it is appropriate (although in that case they have to study more than the 100 questions given by immigration), but I don't believe that this test can prove whether an applicant will be a good citizen or not. I was also surprised at the questions that were considered relevant by INS.

For those of you who will be taking this test, there are a lot of well-developed web sites that can help you prepare. For those of you who don't have to take the exam, take a look at a few of these to get an idea of what new citizens have to go through to get that privilege.

"http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/servic..." - This is Immigration's official website. There are several studyguides as well as an excellent on-line self test. Be sure to check this site out.

"http://www.shusterman.com/" - Follow the citizenship links and you will find several study guides.

"http://www.rusam.com/" - This site has another good on-line test.

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