Remember civics?

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services has released the new, revamped questions of the citizenship test, which they’ll be slowly phasing in to completely replace the existing test by Oct. 1, 2009 according to this CNN article. The new questions are arguably a bit harder, in that some ask slightly more abstract questions. (“What does the Constitution do?” versus “What is the Constitution?”… although to be perfectly frank. The Constitution doesn’t do anything, aside from sit in its case and wait for the GOP to slowly eat away at its underlying purpose.)

Now, I ask… could you pass the new test?

To be a citizen, you would have to correctly answer 6 out of 10 questions, randomly chosen by test-givers from 100 questions. (The USCIS publishes all possible questions and acceptable answers for would-be citizens to study, so there is no trickery involved).

So, here are 10 randomly-selected questions for you to test your civics knowledge:

The New Test

1. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?

2. What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?

3. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?

4. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?

5. What is the name of the Speaker of the House of Representatives now?

6. There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them.

7. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?

8. There were 13 original states. Name three.

9. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?

10. What did Susan B. Anthony do?

To see the answers and the full list of possible questions, click here.