The U.S. citizenship test is being updated, and some immigrants and advocates fear that such changes will make the examination more difficult for test-takers with lower levels of English proficiency.
The naturalization test is one of the final steps toward the monthslong process of attaining citizenship. Former Republican President Donald Trump’s administration changed the test in 2020 by making it longer and objectively more difficult, but Democratic President Joe Biden signed an executive order once he took office, and the citizenship test was changed back to its previous version, last updated in 2008.
In December, US authorities said the test was due for an update after 15 years, and the new version is expected late next year. US Citizenship and Immigration Services proposes that the new test adds a speaking section to assess English skills that would involve identifying and describing photos of common scenarios. In the current test, an officer evaluates speaking ability during the naturalization interview by asking more personal questions the applicant had provided information about in their paperwork.
Another proposed change would make the civics section on US history and government multiple-choice instead of short-answer.
Both of these changes have received criticism.
“For me, I think it would be harder to look at pictures and explain them,” said Mehreta.
Heaven Mehreta, an immigrant from Ethiopia this year, told the AP said she learned English as an adult after moving to the U.S. and found pronunciation to be very difficult. She worries that adding a new speaking section based on photos, rather than personal questions, will make the test harder for others like her.
“For me, I think it would be harder to look at pictures and explain them,” said Mehreta.
On the civics front, Bill Bliss, a citizenship textbook author in Massachusetts, gave an example in a blog post of how the test would become more difficult because it would require a larger base of knowledge. He explains that for some short-answer questions where knowing one correct answer was fine, all possible answers would need to be accounted for to pick the right multiple-choice answer.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a December announcement that the proposed changes “reflect current best practices in test design.”
