“Becoming a United States citizen carries with it extraordinary rights and responsibilities,” said USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. “Our new test captures the meaning of citizenship and is consistent with our values and history as a nation.”
The revised naturalization test will help strengthen integration efforts by emphasizing fundamental concepts of American democracy, basic U.S. history, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
USCIS began administering the new naturalization test Oct. 1, 2008, with two basic objectives – to ensure a uniform test administration nationwide and to develop a civics test that can effectively assess an applicant’s knowledge of U.S. history and government. Up until Oct. 1, 2009, applicants who had filed for naturalization before Oct. 1, 2008, had a choice of taking the old test or the new test. Currently, the overall pass rate for the new test is 91 percent.