Sinkford Takes a Crash Course Challenge
May 1, 2009
The Unitarian Universalist Association’s (UUA’s) Crash Course for Immigrant Justice page offers a collection of activities to promote awareness and spark discussion. There are films, books, art projects, questions to use for a quiz night, and even an essay contest. UUA President Rev. William G. Sinkford kicked off the Crash Course for Immigrant Justice by trying his hand at a task that fuses the themes of education and immigration: the United States citizenship test.
Immigrants applying for naturalization take a test administered by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that gauges their knowledge of both English and civics. Applicants prepare by studying one hundred questions about United States history and government, up to ten of which they are verbally quizzed on during the test. Of those ten questions, they must answer six correctly in order to pass.
Sinkford attempted to answer all one hundred questions in writing, without any prior study. “I was surprised at the depth and breadth of knowledge of our history and governance the test required,” he observed after the test’s completion. For Sinkford, English was no a problem. But a few questions about the United States government gave him some trouble.
Bill put the number of Constitutional amendments at twenty-three, instead of giving the correct number, twenty-seven. He overshot when naming rights given in the Declaration of Independence, listing the right of “people to determine their own government” and “to change their government.” The correct answer was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And he put the President Pro-tem of the House as the next person in line for the Presidency after the Vice-President, instead of the Speaker of the House.
Overall, Sinkford did extremely well, missing only three out of one hundred questions. Because he hadn’t studied the material beforehand, he gave several correct but creative answers. For example, when asked to name one thing for which Benjamin Franklin is famous, Sinkford by-passed Franklin’s government and diplomatic achievements and wrote “the Franklin Stove.” And when prompted to define the United States economic system, he embellished the suggested answer of “capitalism” by adding “tempered by concern for ‘we the people’.”
“The test was no snap,” Sinkford said.“I wonder how a typical high school graduate or even college graduate would do on the test. But perhaps my greatest question is whether the test is predictive of good citizenship. Does knowing how many amendments our Constitution has lead to more effective and consistent participation in our Democratic process?”
How well would you do on the citizenship test?
Try an abridged version with twenty questions on MSNBC.com, or download all one hundred questions (PDF, 11 pages) and their answers from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Learn more about immigration through the UUA’s May Action of the Month, Crash Course for Immigrant Justice.
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Last updated on Thursday, June 3, 2010.
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