Where do I send back my passport?

[major_clanger]

Oops. Despite having lived in the UK for all of my forty years, and not only possessing a law degree but having been called to the Bar, I scored only 54% on the Practice UK Citizenship Test. It looks like I'll be joining several of my friends on the boat out.

But..but... this test sucks. I mean it - I have had some training and experience in writing multiple-choice tests, and this one is an absolutely awful example of one of those. Many of the questions (such as the one on how many children there are in the UK) give four very similar answers, any one of which fall within the level of accuracy of knowledge one might reasonably expect (i.e. 'about 20-25% of the total population' for that particular question).

Other questions were wrong. I've filled out a metric shitload of job applications recently, and I was asked for my NI Number far more often than a CV. (Many employers have tailored application forms and expressly do not want CVs.) Some want information that is frankly of historical interest only, such as the exact year when women gained the right to divorce. (That they did, and relatively recently, is important - but surely it's enough to know that it was around 150 years ago, rather than say between the Wars or when the Bill of Rights was enacted.)

And then there were questions that required an exactly correct answer. I've studied EU law as part of my legal training and recently did a major pro bono project that involved me going over documents from the various major organs of the Union. And I managed to get 'Council of Europe' rather than 'Council of the European Union' as the final answer.

This test is not, to use a favourite phrase of our Government, Fit For Purpose.

Comments

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

We took issue with the one about going to a hospital without a letter from your GP. I can see what they're getting at, but we do it all the time. If you didn't understand that question, you might believe you had to take a letter with you to each appointment. Your GP would love you, not.

[drplokta]

I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of the test. Like most tests and qualifications, the purpose is not to tell whether or not you actually have useful knowledge; it's to test your motivation and ability to learn what's in the book. It could just as well be a test of memorising a dozen random numbers, except that that would look silly.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

But what happens when the people who take the test and pass start acting on the mis-information in the book and, for example, start demanding letters from their GP to visit hospital?

At the very least they're going to get very confused...

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Quite agree - it's fit for purpose, but the purpose is not necessarily the one advertised.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Can we complain to the advertising standards authority?

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

This certainly seems to be how it's treated ('Life In The UK' circulates briskly round my workplace like a pair of jump leads). One of my colleagues remarked that back home at the Institute they had compulsory Marxism, Sociology and Civil Defence (so having to memorise the book did not bother him unduly, was the implication) - LOL.

The potential extra delays are what seem to concern people (if your spouse or employer plans a trip to Country X and then it turns out you still need a visa, or worse still the only passport you have is In The System - it is a real PITA).

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

I managed a 75% pass thanks to a bit of guesswork on the numbers, but I agree entirely that it's a terrible test. I certainly don't see why anyone would need to know the number of children or the percentage of self-identified Moslems on the census, never mind the one about divorce.

Not Fit For Purpose indeed.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I passed. Shame I have no intention of naturalising really.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

It's actually vaguely sinister, not because it's a deliberate attempt to keep people out, but because it demonstrates how little the authorities cared about getting it right. With Woolas implying that people who want citizenship had better not expect free speech until they've got it, this is building up to another own goal.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I was more than a little shocked to discover this morning that free speech doesn't apply to me. But, of course, he doesn't mean nice middle class Irish women, who happen to be resident in the UK, or at least, that's what he'd like us to believe.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

The one about "public" election thoroughly confused me. What are "public" elections? As a resident I can vote for the local elections; as a EU citizen I can elect (as I did) to vote for the British MEP. I cannot vote for the Parliament - I had no idea that Irish and Australians could! I still find it mightily hard to believe it!

[timill]

The Irish have grandfathered rights from when they were a part of the UK.

Didn't know about the Australians, though. I wonder about Canada?

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

I believe all commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can vote in UK elections.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

That is my understanding too

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Yup. Full list of what countries this covers here:

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/who_can_register_to_vote.aspx

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I only knew about Australians from having one in the house :-)

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I think the key word was 'all' public elections. As you rightly say EU citizens can vote in local and European Parliament Elections but not in national ones and that was the 'trick' of the question.

Irish people are treated in British in almost all cases as if we are British. It's a hangover from when independance happened and we ceased being full citizens automatically - to do otherwise would have created a huge group of people would have lived in England/Scotland/Wales for all of their life with very unclear rights and responsiblities.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Well, you are fine in that respect. As a citizen of a state that has signed the European Convention on Human Rights, you have rights under it, and the Human Rights Act 1998 guarantees those rights - including Article 10 re freedom of expression - to everyone in the UK, not just citizens. What Phil Woolas seems to have said is that non-citizen residents from states that aren't ECHR signatories may be denied their ECHR rights, which may be technically within the law but is utterly at odds with its purpose, as initially laid out by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine:

"The fourth point may be shortly stated but is of immense importance. The Courts' decisions will be based on a more overtly principled, indeed moral, basis. The Court will look at the positive right. It will only accept an interference with that right where a justification, allowed under the Convention, is made out. The scrutiny will not be limited to seeing if the words of an exception can be satisfied. The Court will need to be satisfied that the spirit of this exception is made out. It will need to be satisfied that the interference with the protected right is justified in the public interests in a free democratic society. Moreover, the Courts will in this area have to apply the Convention principle of proportionality. This means the Court will be looking substantively at that question. It will not be limited to a secondary review of the decision making process but at the primary question of the merits of the decision itself.

In reaching its judgment, therefore, the Court will need to expand and explain its own view of whether the conduct is legitimate. It will produce in short a decision on the morality of the conduct and not simply its compliance with the bare letter of the law."

That was in 1997. New Labour saw the HRA into law, but it didn't take long for the original high-minded ideals behind it to become something of an embarrassment.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that clarification. Phil Woolas didn't make that distinction on the Today program, because EU-citizens really aren't his target and he possibly assumes this is obvious.

I remember 1997 when New Labour did actually seem to be liberal on civil rights. *sigh* My father was saying last night that he's worried about the Tories winning the next elections as they are xenophobic and knee jerk and I had to say that I didn't think it would change much.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

And maybe afterwards. I don't know how things stand in the UK, but it is usually possible to strip somebody of citizenship if they aren't born into it.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Simon, you're completely wrong: it's precisely fit for the purpose for which it's been designed. Only maybe that's not the purpose the rest of us anticipated.

Long meant to ask you, did you ever catch the shortlived BBC series Outlaws (from which I stole the above image)?

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

It's horrendous. I got 58%, but on all other tests I pass very highly, including the ones that require me to deny the history of the British Isles, because I know what the answer should be.

And that's why I haven't taken out UK citizenship. Some of the questions are ambiguous in the extreme (what, A&E departments are not part of hospitals?)

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

What you said, plus what frandowsofa said. I am pretty sure that my answer to the employment one was correct - you NEED a NI number to be employed, I know because I didn't have one when I got her. And you bet you can be seen in a hospital without a GP letter: you can be tested for STD just by walking in the appropriate department, just to mention one.

The only important one I got wrong was the epyscopalian: thank you unnamed writer for reminding me that despite UK having a sterling tradition of agnosticism and atheism, as a non-believer, and worse, a Catholic non-believer, I will never be completely British.

You know, I have wanted to become a citizen since I first moved here. I have been counting the days. But I have no illusions about Britain: it is ALSO the country that sent two BNP to the European Parliament, the nation that thinks asylum seekers are the worst threat to British way of life, and the nation that created NuLabour. I've always known that by taking that oath I was swearing fealty to a mixed bag.

This spiteful, nationalist nonsense will just keep my starry-eyed patriotism in check. And make me take that oath with a bit of a clenched jaw.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

And by the way - I fail the minimum requirements: I am currently not able to support myself without benefits. Therefore, not only I have been denied benefits despite having paid way more than I could possibly get in the my three years of employments: by claiming them, I automatically desqualified myself as prospective citizen.

And to think that I was actually proud of paying my NI contribution...

[timill]

I found the easiest way to handle it was to read the HTML...

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

LOL

[autopope.livejournal.com]

An acquaintance of mine -- lawyer, American, anglophile -- failed the test too. He went to the books. On a couple of the questions they're simply factually wrong: notably the answer to the divorce question and the parliamentary record (depending on how you parse it).

It's basically a rote learning test designed to exclude folks who are bright enough to think they know the answers already, and to pass the slavishly obedient. Interesting implications, those ...

Also, as Feorag noticed: in the immigration statistics? They class UK citizens returning to the UK as "immigrants" -- a category that accounts for 75% of the 100,000 immigrants arriving per year.

Double-hmm.

[cthulie.livejournal.com]

Having passed for reals... yeah, they do specify that they want the answers from the book, even if you know they're wrong!

Plus, don't forget they stick you for £30 every time you take it.

[gmh.livejournal.com]

My immediate inclination would be to say: 'stuff you, stuff your test, go to Whitehall and learn from the example of Charles I' - which, at least in my book, should qualify as an automatic pass if you want to fit in with UK citizens.

Sadly, I don't think that they'd see it that way.

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

38%

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

71% in 6 and a half minutes, so maybe i keep passport. but agree - test utterly sucks! :( questions seem completely random - i mean yes, knowing the speed limits on different kinds of road in UK seems useful enough, but who the hell would bother finding out whether divorce rights were in 1835 or 1875? unless you're a history student or similar? of no relevance whatever to what you need to know to be a useful citizen. Bah!

[calatrice.livejournal.com]

As a UK citizen by birth I feel thoroughly embarrassed that my government is asking anybody to even read that tripe. I got 54%. None of the questions seemed to be related to useful information for living day-to-day in the UK.

Incidentally, last year I was stung by another aspect of this mania for citizenship. My employer (of nine years) announced that they had to see documentary proof within a couple of days that all employees were entitled to work in the UK. I can't imagine they came up with this independently - it must have been in response to some official demand. The only forms of ID that were acceptable for a UK citizen were a valid UK passport, a full photographic driving license with all the supporting paperwork (not just the card), or a long-form birth certificate.

I can't drive, my passport lapsed before Alex was born, and my parents only got me a short birth certificate. There was much flapping when I explained the problem. I did apply for a long birth certificate, which duly arrived and was accepted as proof. Why this is proof of anything is a mystery to me, as anyone can apply for a copy of anyone's birth certificate. Ain't bureaucracy fun?