Brits Attempt the British Citizenship Test - TLDR News
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
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Those attempting to get British citizenship have to complete a test to prove their British enough; the Life in the UK Test. So we thought if we expect them to know that stuff, shouldn't we know it too? So we tested our British TLDR Team to see if any of them could pass the British citizenship test.
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00:00 We Try the British Citizenship Test
"I just don't care, this sort of stuff is just so fucking completely irrelevant"
this is more British than actually knowing the answer
Your comment made my day 😂
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
Bahhahaha!!
Exactly
*police officer walks in*
“You’ve passed mate. Nearest pub’s three streets over. Your first one’s on the Exchequer.”
I'd be sent to Rwanda if I did a British citizen test
If only we could send *all* of Britain’s problems to Rwanda.
Lmao
Yea but have you seen the Rwandan citizen test? Much harder.
You assume they would take us... they'd be like even we have standards!
@@mangonel 😂🤣
'I guess not, it's got to be no, right? Otherwise coz you'd just have a bunch of Australians turning up and voting'
Me, an Australian who's turned up and voted in UK elections: 😅
you already have a bunch of aussies turning up and voting here because you only have to be part of the commonwealth and 18
sorry didnt watch the video yet
now i get ya
I haven’t but I could. OTOH that would require me to travel to UKLand...
Ahhahaha, this is so cool!
How can you vote with a criminal record?
I suppose it is quite fitting, that in order to become a British Citizen, you have to be able to do a pub quiz.
I haven't been in a pub since I stopped being a professional DJ in December 1989. Their wines are never good enough.
Hahahaha thats actually dead funny haha born and bread English me and i wouldnt of won this pub quiz
My wife is a US citizen and got her British Citizenship a year ago. She has a bloody PhD in Medieval English History and getting her to revise for weeks about Ian Botham and Jackie Stewart felt pretty stupid.
I like the idealism of the test.
Nationhood is about shared identity and common purpose. The test is trying to get newcomers to have some common understanding of their new home. In other words, to help them become insiders rather than outsiders.
The cultural questions are arguably the most important part in that goal.
But what the test exposes is:
the UK has a terrible education system that fails to give its young people a coherent sense of history, as well as ignoring the colonial acts that will have led to many present day migrants coming to the UK;
And that the idealism of the test is pretentious, hypocritical waffle when, for example, the government does not protect the rule of law, or Parliament has a significant percentage of its members credibly accused to sexual assault, or the UK government sends asylum seekers to a nation on another continent which routinely breaks human rights laws.
The reality of the UK is not reflected in the test.
"What's the traditional car racing colour of England?"
@@BuenoSuertes (British Racing) Green. Who doesn't know that?
@@spewter I like the idea of shared identity, but the people who make these tests should then do exactly what they did in this video, namely put ordinary British people to take the test. Those questions that almost everyone gets right should be in the test as those clearly belong to the shared identity. If people don't know the exact year when Henry VIII's rule started, then that shouldn't be in the test.
That is an example of a question where the right answer should be obvious to anyone who has a general good grasp of British history and is able to place Henry VIII in the 16th century instead of Middle ages or modern times, but doesn't necessarily know if it is this or that year that he became the king.
@@spewter One of the major ironies of sending people to Rwanda for processing is that there's a non-trivial number of people who come here claiming asylum FROM Rwanda!
Wow, as an Australian I didn't know I could move there and vote in your elections, thats mad.
yeah thats blown my mind hahaha
I mean it makes sense. If you have residency in a country, I'd expect you to be able to vote there. We had the same thing with the EU when we were in it, now it's a complicated mess, just like everything Brexit related.
@@sykessaul123 For General Elections for the UK government, EU citizens as a whole could NOT vote ( I know, as my partner is German ). Only residents from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland have that right ( so resident EU citizens from Ireland, Cyprus and Malta all can still vote in UK general elections ).
As eligibility to vote in a general election was also the criterion for voting in the Brexit referendum, this means that resident citizens from about 53 commonwealth countries could vote ( and many did ), but not most EU citizens that had also made their home here.
Not that voting in a UK general election is particularly useful anyway. Due to our archaic voting system, only about 30% of constituencies are subject to change, and even then voters often have to choose between the lesser of two evils if their vote is to mean anything. That's a very long way from voting for policy implementation that was the original intent of democracy.
Yes. Aussies and Saffers swung Brexit. It played to their self interests too
@@sykessaul123 Got to be an Australian citizen to vote in Australia.
"There's 40 questions, you need at least 75 correct to pass" I don't think they want you to pass 😂
75 percent to pass I believe
@Duo Me too Lol 😆😆 Not with this toxic right wing government. Who want to come to Brexsh*t UK. I already left that country for the EU 🤣🤣😆
Reminds me of how other countries' qualifications are translated to the UK- I knew someone who got the Spanish equivalent of straight stars, but the grades translated low enough that she almost couldn't get into a specific law course.
Caught that but regularly working with Brits, that's how they talk when transitioning from numbers to relative percentages, at least in the business environment.
@Can Tin when they say "give it 110%," they're not joking!
The Loch Ness/Loch Lomond question is really quite mean; Loch Lomond is the largest body of fresh water in the UK by surface area, but Loch Ness is the largest by volume. And the wording leaves it sort of ambiguous (sure, I guess "expanse" suggests surface area, but a little specificity wouldn't harm anyone)
This is exactly the kind of a trick questions that should not be in this test. You should rather ask geography questions that are obvious to a Briton (eg. what is the longest river or what is the highest point)
It's more a question of understanding the subtleties of English than the geography.
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
@@markusklyver6277 You're kidding. Now that takes the biscuit.
It seems pretty clear that the test is set up to intentionally make people fail. It's disgusting really.
The question about Edinburgh Castle doesn't include the correct answer. Historic Scotland was dissolvedin 2015. Historic Environment Scotland took over its duties, as well as those of other organisations, 7 years ago.
Well they did say they pulled their questions from a database of historical questions (It's in that blurb screen that we were told we can pause and read), so its possible their source for this question was from before 2015.
It's good that someone looks after the castles. If not you'd have delinquent castles running around all over the place getting into legal trouble and drugs.
I mean yeah but I've been a member of HES for years and I never noticed the naming difference 😅
What the BritGov not knowing facts about their colonial playground!! I’m shocked!
@@EtoileLion shouldn't it update every 5 years or so at least?
Funny to see a question about the enlightenment when it was not particularly a British. It was all across Europe, and probably mainly France (with figures like Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.)
Whilst it was certainly Europe-wide, I think that you could say that Newton and Bacon played important roles (especially if you emphasise the scientific aspects). Anyway the test overall is pretty BS, and I reckon 95% of British citizens would fail it.
@lesswrong I'd say Hobbes is definitely the precursor of the Enlightment movement, and that four countries did lead the movement (in no order): Netherland, England, Scotland and France. You can't really say one particular country was leading, as almost all the "celebrities" of this movement studied in at least two of Paris, Copenhagen, London and Edinburgh. The Brittish are the ones who followed it up the best though: with Newton, Mill and Bentham.
@lesswrong the UK was a backwater until the 19th century...
@@frinkls5347 Lol, just a few centuries off.
From what I know the enlightement is considered to be born in Scotland and to have had it's maximum development in France. Anyway it is an European movement which shaped the culture of various contry (UK included) therefor I see nothing wrong in including it in the test.
TO CLARIFY: The Nebula version of this video is an ADDITIONAL 40 minutes of content. Barely any of that video is included in this one, so even if you’ve watched this video in its entirety there’s still tonnes more to see
CORRECTION: At 15:26 the answer on screen says that 0.1% of British people are Sikh, the correct answer is 0.8%
Also, apologies for the couple of times the wrong question appears on screen. We spent hours reviewing the full length video (and it takes a while as it's 40 minutes long) but there must have been some issues when we copied that timeline across to this video. Hopefully it's not too confusing as unfortunately TH-cam won't allow us to make any changes at this point - Jack
You could delete and reupload the video if you find it necessary i think?
The chapter titles (is that what they are called?) also seem to be wrong. They appear to belong to a Boris Johnson video although I'm noy sure
Thanks for the correction. I was very surprised that there would be only 66,000 Sikh's in the UK.
If you're not going to reupload the video, at least pin this comment
The channel name is TLDR and the 20 minutes long video is just a sum of an other 40 minutes video and without watching that as well, I don't even know if You guys passed the test. At this point, I don't even care. Too Long, Didn't Watch
The computing question sounds like somebody thought that the Turing Machine is an actual piece of hardware. It's certainly important, but it's also very theoretical. Turing's work and actual hardware were, however, very clearly influential. A disgrace he was treated so badly after the war for being gay.
The question is flawed completed. Where did people discover the airplane, MRI scanner and radar? They were all inventions and the Turing machine, as you said, is a math model of a theoretical machine to describe algorithms.
"There's 40 questions. You need at least 75 correct to pass".
Yep I think that’s the current standard from the government 🤣.
LOL yeah I wondered about that one too. But I guess he just forgot to say "percent". I wonder if he assumed percent to be metric? 😏
I think he meant 75%, but the fact remains.
Not much chance of passing then.😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
Yes, given by a guy who failed the British IQ test.
The first major railway … “Not the Elizabeth line cos it opened yesterday…” 😂
It was also not the Great Western line the Liverpool to Manchester line predates it
What are Tories doing about overwhelming immigration from India. Half a million every year
@@jonsouth1545 The first passenger line would make much more sense as a question. Of course that would.... Stockton to Darlington.
@@bertbrindsky9511 they have included a question on the %age of Sikhs.
@@rogink The first passenger-carrying public railway was opened by the Swansea and Mumbles Railway at Oystermouth in 1807, using horse-drawn carriages on an existing tramline. In 1802, Richard Trevithick designed and built the first (unnamed) steam locomotive to run on smooth rails.
What I am wondering is this: would Pritti Patel have passed it?
P.S. I have my doubts. For BoJo as well.
There were no questions about when is a party not a party?
what would Pepa Pig do in these circumstances?
@@j.j.1064 Pepa turned to the judge and said "underidoderidoderiododeriodoo "
I believe the entire cabinet would fail, those who are " foreigners" due to ignorance and the rest from stupidity.
I get that it's not supposed to be taken seriously, but wouldn't Patel have been involved in making the questions? Spending a lot of time with that would probably make it pretty easy.
@@maximiliankarlsson1484 I suspect it's one of those things that get quietly handed off to someone two or three steps down the ladder to oversee.
Nothing gets Priti Patel angrier than when an immigrant doesn’t know when King Henry the 8th was crowned king
"cuz otherwise you have a bunch of Australians turning up and voting" YES - ITS BEEN THEM THE ENTIRE TIME !
Bloody convicts! /s
question 14... the turing machine is an INVENTION, not a discovery. Who ever wrote these tests just faied at the english language.
There is a whole philosophical debate on whether maths is invented or discovered. So the question isn't phrased incorrectly
@@azmah1999 Famous quote from Michelangelo "The David statue was already there, all I had to do is remove the marble that was hiding it". In that kind of thinking Maths is a discovery. Actually it's an invention, since a math concept does exist as little as "David" in the marble.
I think the biggest shock is not knowing "Elgar".
But overall I give this test a solid FAIL in terms of asking loads of pointless questions - I think the "Who looks after Edinburgh Castle" is the one of the worst. And the "Length of the UK" - why on earth is it important to know with 30 mile accuracy?
I specifically looked up the longest distance in the UK a year or two back, because I had a Swedish girlfriend at the time and was curious how much longer Sweden is than the UK. So I knew it was about eight hundred and some miles. But even with having been specifically interested in the answer to this question relatively recently, it would have been a coinflip for me to get the right answer. In what way is that a useful gauge of anyone's suitability to live here?
i only heard length of the UK from a Sean Conway show where he ran from north to south....
@@WhichDoctor1 I only knew the answer to that one because of Top Gear.
Also thats the length of the UK in navicable road length?!?!?! not the distance from point A to point B as the crow flys.
I have looked up the length as I'm interested in cycling it one day and I still wasn't sure which of the over 800 miles answers is correct. Plus the cycling route is typically over 900 miles
OMG you didn't even have the craziest questions. My fav was "What country is most associated with roast beef?" The one that threw me on my ACTUALLY exam was "If you sell cigarettes to a minor in Wales, what court would you be tried in?"
C'mon! A legitimate question from the test is: "What time does the pub open in England"
@@sbIvanov I think that IS a question
@@melissamoore6539 indeed, it is a legitimate question!
What time it opens depends on the pub. They don't all open at the same time.
@@simontay4851 doesn't matter, it is one of the questions on the citizenship test!
The phrasing of some of these almost seem designed to trip up non-native English speakers. Though for most people I know with indefinite leave to remain, coming up with the £1330 to apply (which you lose if you’re refused) is more of a barrier to naturalisation.
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
@@user-op8fg3ny3j the French gonna overflow UK with incompetent citizens and will finally defeat them in a war. It's all a masterplan
Which is the whole point.
@@martinjp1 I don't see the point. You'd think that you would want to get the majority of the people with the indefinite leave to integrate into the society and apply for the citizenship. It's more likely that they integrate if they identify themselves as British and not foreigner.
I can't see much of a benefit to have a large population of people with the permanent residence but who want to keep their original nationality because the host country has made it so hard to convert
@@srelma It's propping numbers more than anything. Having x "immigrants" means they have stats to say they're full or there's too many and brits need to take their countries back.
In reality it only makes people feel and act like outsiders, it just serves specific political agendas.
Edit: It's also easier to kick someone out this way. Virtually any reason would do if a state of emergency is called.
They should add, “Who is the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Officer?”
Notice how many questions - even the ones he got correct - were by process of elimination or an educated guess. My educated guess is that this quiz was written by a sailing enthusiast, given that there were multiple questions related to that topic. The question about Henry VIII was by far the most bullshit one, a 20 year window 500 years ago, nobody who isn't a historian would know that. But the most deceptive one to me is the question about how long Great Britain is. Most people taking this test will come from outside the UK, and most of the world outside the UK measures in kilometers, not miles. So asking that question in miles is just an added layer of trickery.
Pretty sure that if you are Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish you would not be unlikely to know anything of this period of English history. Mind you I don't suppose the Northern Irish should know, they aren't even British. They are United Kingdomish, I suppose. It's all BS!
Not being used to measuring distance in miles is what prevents you from choosing between 840 and 870 miles, yeah. :)
@@Gus199lll BS is abbreviation for BritiSh
Q14. I'm pretty sure Henry VIII was reigning, not reining, though he probably rode a horse on occasions.
TIL: TLDR blokes didn't read Horrible Histories.
Yeah. I remember a story about a guy who sailed around the world with his goat but I don't remember his name lol
"The River Thames is not freshwater, it's disgusting old brown water." 🤣
I was is he joking fresh water is just non saltwater lol
Swimming in the Thames = Going through the motions.
@@GhostEmblem in which case most of the Thames' area isn't fresh water either, since it's an estuary across most of London
@@Tefans97 TIL
Wait...if everyone in the Commonwealth can vote in UK elections could they have technically influenced Brexit if they wanted to?
Yeah, but we'd all have voted just as erratically as the UK citizens.
I was in this exact position and chose not to vote. It seemed wrong when I knew I wasn't planning to stay long-term.
Only if they live in the UK too
As a commonwealth citizen, yes. But we have to actually be living in the UK on a valid visa besides the standard tourism visa. If you're here to work, study, or otherwise live, yeah, we can vote. Not that there's a massive amount of commonwealth citizens living in the UK, and there's not much reason to expect them to swing the Brexit vote since it's not like every commonwealth citizen in the UK are Remainers.
That question is so poorly written, because you _can't_ vote in UK elections unless you pass that first hurdle (being British/Irish/Commonwealth citizen), but you also need to have the right to remain (British and Irish have this already, Commonwealth is a patchwork of yesses and noes), and then you need to have a UK address.
"Commonwealth citizens can vote in the UK" isn't wrong, but neither is "French nationals can," in that someone with a French passport isn't barred from voting, they just need to have a qualifying passport and right to remain as well.
TLDR and their creative timestamps: 'childish behaviour, hiding from the media, new rules for them, in defence of Johnson'
Edit: the timestamps were removed, very secretive
They weren't removed
@@PLKartofel You're right when I checked back they were gone, more of a TH-cam problem if anything
I think they were meant to be applied to a different video
@Alexei Smirnoff it's frustrating but tbh I'd prefer good content and poor editing than polished editing but bad content
Be careful you aren't seeing one of the many TH-cam bugs - seeing comments/description from one video on a different video - I've seen this happen multiple times, and is down to the web page dynamically loading content and using stale data. As long as they get their ad revenue, TH-cam doesn't really care about good user experience design or fixing bugs.
I hated taking the test but I will admit I LOVED studying for it. I had a year so I spent it binging BBC documentaries on the iPlayer and going to museums. I made flash cards and would regularly take tests. I even made a board game and forced all my friends and colleagues to play with me.
Making your own boardgames is rad. Well done!
I've never been to Britain, I have no interest in living or going there... but the only questions I found hard were the ones about comedy duos or random artists I've never heard of... But the history and government stuff? That's easy. I knew Henry VIII started his reign in 1509 (didn't know the exact month)... that sleazebag! His dad, Henry VII and his daughter, Elizabeth O were way cooler. Heck, even Mary was cooler.
Forcing friends and colleagues to play a game of your own devising is pure British.
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
@@octavianpopescu4776 Elizabeth 0?
Impressed that you had the right date for Henry VIII - the only date I know about him is 1545 - when his flagship Mary Rose sank not far from where I live!
“There’s 40 questions, you need at least 75 to pass” Genius plan to keep everyone from citizenship.
Don't give them ideas... They'll do it.
75% lol
If only that were true
@@deang5622 no
“Modern and thriving society” literally made me laugh out loud.
It's obviously aspirational.
Especially since some of the questions were in the past tense.
How modern and thriving can it be, if your examples are in the past tense?
Especially with a question about Henry VIII
It may not be thriving to the peoples standards But compared to African, Central America, and South American countries it’s pretty thriving
@Can Tin Maybe, but I don't think it's relevant to being a good citizen.
“You have to speak English to an acceptable level…”
Well, that rules out the majority of the population of the United States.
I’m proud to have failed as an American
@@capturedflame too true too true
We in the USA speak perfect King’s English. From the 1750 dialect or earlier, but that is besides the point.
You don't. You often miss out the letter T from certain words. InTernational, PrinTer for example.
You say dates the wrong way round. Day before month. Not everything is in bunches.
@@Egilhelmson "it's _a_ king's English, you say? Close enough. Approved!"
The person who wrote this test needs to check out if they're British enough, lol. Question 2, what the hell is "To do THE military service"? Should that not be "To do military service"?
aparently it was outsourced to a french company anyways lol
12) Saint Helena is not a British Overseas Territories. However, it is a part of a BOT called Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
And it's pronounced hel-EE-na
I would pay all the money in my pocket to watch Boris Johnson and Priti Patel taking this test live on TV.
9:44 - Question 14. As someone from Northern Ireland, I knew this as it's something that still affects NI to this very day and is the fundamental start of the current day problems. This is no sleight on the TLDR team, who I hold in very high regard, but it does not surprise me, in the slightest, that English people do not know things like this.
I got it right, but only by process of elimination. I do not know too much about the plantations.
It's not that they didn't know the answer, it's that the question is a garden path sentence and what it's asking is deliberately obscure. It's asking for the name of the settlements, but then focused the rest of the text on talking about people, making it seem like they're asking for who settled Ireland if you're not paying strict attention. The whole test is deliberately designed to be confusing and frustrating so people have to retake it and pay the company administering it multiple times. The whole thing is a blatant scam.
Yeah I was surprised this showed up, especially under "illustrious history."
"Remember that time the Queen thought we should go to Ulster, cut down a bunch of trees and steal a lot of land? Gosh, what did we call that, again?"
@@JanSenCheng - oh, I understand that the text of the specific question was presented in a confusing manner (even for a native English speaker - I don't know how a non-native English speaker would interpret the question!!!).
And I do agree with your overview, completely. Some of those questions are ridiculous, and I'd say that a huge proportion of UK-born citizens would fail it. 30 years ago, I got an 'A' in GCSE geography - but would still have had to guess at the biggest lake one. The history questions - we didn't even study English royalty in our syllabus! Overall, I'd probably pass it - but no way do I get near 100%.....
The question itself was very long winded and badly worded. If it was rephrased to say something like “what were the original protestant settlements in northern Ireland called?” it’d probably be easier.
But also I would have only guessed by process of elimination, and in any case, plantation is generally associated with American slavery rather than Irish colonisation.
I'm Thai and had lived in England for a VERY long time.... From personal experience... I think the best test for British citizenship is to have them go on count down and they must be able to score over a certain amount of points... It has everything- usage of the English language , maths, and random banter.... get through that ordeal and you should be fine :)
I am a native of the UK and in my 60's with degree-level education, I read a lot and I suck at Countdown...oh, and I hate Scrabble too!
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
I would fail since I hate Scrabble and can't spell. So finding words from a jumble of letters I can't do. But the maths I will give it a go.
EVERYONE failed it when I challenged people in the office. No exception.
I’m American and passed a couple online practice tests. A lot is just being a history buff.
The Citizenship Test is utterly ridiculous - so say TLDR, Paul Sinha who made a comedy radio programme about it, and so say I. It tests what a pub quiz tests, not whether you'll fit in living in the UK. It would be a joke if people's lives and happiness didn't depend on it.
tbf... To be taking the quiz in the first place you must have lived there for at least 5 years... So their lives aren't at sake...
I'm a dutchman with an above average interest in the english language, in the UK and in its constituent countries. What's the use of knowing whether Land's End and John o'Groats are 840 or 870 miles apart? And there were some of those, questions merely designed to assure about 50 percent of applicants would give the wrong answer.
Its real boomer logic to care about crap like that. Modern people just google stuff like that when they need to know. Its not relevant.
Indeed. The more important question is how long does it take to get from A to B, not how far is it.
Heeltemal gek
I’ve contemplated cycling LEJOG, and I feel like even people planning a route between the two would be somewhat unlikely to know or care exactly how far apart they are as the crow flies.
@@jonsmith5058 not boomer logic! Boomers were forced to learn such crap. Blame the previous generation.
This sort of knowledge the government expects you to know is more niche than what the school system teaches
Ikr.
When the country's own education system doesn't teach such things.
@@davidty2006 Exactly. At least maths and english has practical applications in day to day life.
How is knowing when King Henry's reign was going to do anything unless you're a historian?
@@user-op8fg3ny3j exactly, a good question about Henry VIII would be what major event of British history happened during his rule. That's much better for understanding the life in Britain (why the religion is organised in the UK as it is) than some stupid year 500 years ago.
i feel obliged to tell you that your hair picture got me
Of course it is. There are two different purposes here. One is to educate people and impart useful knowledge and skills that will aid the person in adult life, and the other is to restrict the number of people immigrating into the UK and help instill a sense of loyalty to discourage them from attacking the UK.
When I was studying for my UK citizenship test, my friends took the practice tests with me and they all failed.
South African here. Had to take the test last year for citizenship, also quizzed my mates on this. They would all have been kicked out.
I thought it only involved being able to drink enough pints and showing smug contempt for the rest of the world. 😉
No, that's only to be English lol
and speak english slowly and loudly at foreigners ;)
You have to go to some other country and take an artifact to display in the British Museum.
If that’s the case why people would risk their life crossing the channel to be in the U.K.?
@@corradomancini3271 Because we are also dumb enough to hand out houses and benefits to anyone who enters the country.
Commonwealth citizens are also eligible to be elected to the house of commons. As an Australian, I can say that's a little annoying
Indeed, seeing as we in Australia don't return the favour: although there's a rather obscure law which allows British citizens who've been on the electoral roll since 1984 to remain eligible to vote here. But British citizens can't be members of the Australian Parliament, including joint Aussie-Brit citizens.
Why is it annoying? It allows you to have more political rights. I would be upset if I were british, rather than australian.
@@RC-xl8se it's because the Australian constitution bans dual citizens from standing for office. So even though I'm Australian, I can stand for office in the UK but not in my own country.
Born in London of British parents. I failed it 17 times. My wife, French, passed it first time. It’s a scam and nothing to do with cultural identity.
Sad
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
@@markusklyver6277 I know! The whole thing is really stupid. France has a similar test and I doubt many French people I know would pass it either. They’re deterrents and money-spinners.
Jack: “There are 40 questions”
Also Jack: “You need at least 75 correct to pass. We are passing the details to Priti Patel and you’ll be out by the end of the day….”
0:19
Sounds legit.
They don't want it to be too easy to become citizen
@@itsalongday They don't want it to be too easy to BE a citizen.
Seems like our TLDR crew are not the very model of a modern major-general!
Don't know Gilbert and Sullivan...
I did this test and I kept telling people it was bullshit init, a lot of the questions a person on the streets would fail
I'm pretty sure the purpose of the test is more about proving to the government that the wannabe citizen is intelligent and hard-working enough to study for and pass an exam more so than it is an expectation that the information they have to learn is public knowledge...
Personally I think if you know "divorce, beheaded, died, divorce, beheaded, survived" and can identify John Barnes as the singer from love's got the world in motion. You get citizenship.
Who the hell is John Barnes?
@@WhichDoctor1
A footballer. Very famous one. Just as famous for this rap as his 80+ caps.
My 65 year old mum def knows who he is. My sister would, more for the song, and she hates football. And younger people would / should as all over gavin and stacey)
But the real football anthem is Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner, and the Lightning Seeds. Sorry, you must go to Rwanda now.
This test is totally unfit for purpose. It's better off asking questions like: you're a young woman walking the streets of London and a lone Met police officer asks you to stop and get into his car. What should you do?
At night, when no buses are running, flag down a bus!!!!
it's fit for purpose. the purpose is keeping people out. it does that fine.
@@bzuidgeest Only if this test was mandatory for everyone living in Britain, it would lead to the greatest migration exodus in the 21st Century Europe.
@@bzuidgeest The question is whether it should exist - admittedly it does its job well.
@@roastedfanta9474 Most people are stopped from applying for citizenship because of the insane fees. At least the stories I've heard, people have trouble saving as is and the yearly costs because you're not a citizen are high enough to bar anyone except high earning/low cost people from trying. Guess the test is also a motivator not to do it.
After living here for just shy of 4 years, I took the test and passed in 4 minutes.
I only took it then because my wife was doing her application. Belizean-American here. Can I British now? 😂
Do you like fish and chips?
Belize is part of the commonwealth so apparently you can already.
Yes. Here's your complimentary Bowler hat, umbrella and moustache! Your wife would be getting hers when Royal Mail finds them in the lost post.
@@outtheredude 😂😂
This has made my day, hilarious but serious and factual.
You guys nailed It.
Unfortunately HM Government didn't nail the test
Yes, would Moggy pass this test, or should he save embracement and just move to Africa before Priti Patel gets to him.
I had once the idea of apply for British citizenship. I had to learn this stupid- trivial- pursuit booklet. It felt offensive. I passed then I learnt that I had to take loads off other tests, pay the home office to have the nationality all in all it would have cost me 2000£ without being sure of being successful . I abandoned the whole idea and left the uk until it will recovers its mind
Fair enough
Well, as a French lawyer, I took a look about the test given to me by a former asylum seeker to become a French citizen. More or less, the same difficulty about "being French"... Nothing really new. Most of the French people themselves won't make it.
that will be because its the same French company that make both tests
I mean, anything but the tennis player would work for the “artist” one. Elgar was a composer, which is an artist.
Most of those questions were pointless and most british people either don't know them or they are rather inconsequential. You could literally go through life not knowing many of those things. Even the guys that passed it in this video did so via guessing many of them.
I would like to change the citizenship test to be much harsher and only allow people citizenship if they score 100% on the test, but then I would also change the test to only be one question and everyone gets the same question: "Would you like to be a British citizen?". I'm not telling you the right answer, though, because that might let people cheat.
Even more telling and hilarious would be an American version of this. While everyone has laughed at those "Stupid American" videos--a whole genre unto itself--the truly terrifying truth is that we Yanks are now simultaneously functionally illiterate, terrified of history (the teaching of which we are currently outlawing) and extremely, overtly hostile towards immigrants. This in the most famous "land of immigrants," although, as with most hype, it isn't really true. There were a hundred million indigenous inhabitants here before the first European ever raped or enslaved a native Britain is probably a far better example of a true immigrant nation, with its endless, successive waves of invasion and, more usually, peaceful immigration. Fookin' Nigel immigrant-bashing Farage himself came from Huguenot refugees fleeing for their lives. Funny how he ended up living in Gammonland instead of Rwanda, isn't it?
Anyway, and getting back to the outlandish idea of giving Americans such a history- and geography-based citizenship test even as we demonize our Mexican friends--by far the hardest working, least demanding and most law abiding of all our immigrant groups--is simply a brilliant idea. Not that the results would be surprising to the rest of the world, but it would be so very, very eye-opening to the millions of morons here who promote the the idiotic, right-wing populist Nativism that puts babies in cages and denies citizenship to immigrants who serve in our military. My personal favorite is the all too common scenario of ignorant, fat, white morons telling Mexican-Americans, who have been living the Southwest for 500 years, and the indigenous, First Peoples who have been here for many, many thousands of years to "go back where they came from." These folks would not do well on such a citizenship test, or any other, for that matter.
Well said!
It should be called the Tory test. Most people in the UK would fail it.
"The Tory Test" implies that a Tory couldn't fail.
The ironic part is that the government outsourced this immigration stuff to a French company 🤣
ALL the answers are in the official handbook 'Life in the United Kingdom' - you just need to read it. It is really a test of how well you know and remember the book, so basically a memory retention test, which some say correlates somewhat to peoples IQ.
My wife completed her ILR and that “Life in the UK” test. It is literally just “Here is a book. Read it and then answer questions about it.” So long as you can read English then and pick 1 of 4 answers then you’re okay.
Even if it sounds silly, it is the most fair way to do it.
As a train enthusiast, I would object to the railway question. Parts of the WCML - and significant parts at that - opened in 1837 (Birmingham to Manchester) and 1838 (London to Birmingham) respectively. The GWML was opened in stages between 1838 and 1841 (London to Maidenhead 1838; to Faringdon Road 1840; Bristol to Bath 1840; connected up 1841). So if you count the full route, then yes, the GWML opened before the WCML (as by 1841, the Birmingham cut-off and the line north of Crewe hadn’t been built/opened); but if you count any substantial useful amount of the line, then the WCML opened before the GWML.
there seemed to be a few questions with questionable answers.
Great western was 7ft guage when it was built.
And i only learned how early it was built from bloody youtube video's.
They don't teach much about railways in the education system.
Fellow rail enthusiast here, and I'm afraid I have to disagree as the WCML is a route, not a railway in itself which the GWR was, and that's what the question is asking for. You've gotten very technical about something that's not entirely relevant here.
@@zacm.2342 To me this seems more that the people writing the question, just wrote the wrong name. All the other 3 answers are routes, yet the GWR one is the company name at the time, so I'd say it's safe to assume that the GWR was written down by mistake, instead of the GWML
Given Bojo was not born in the UK, how did he manage to get a British citizenship, if he even has ?
bought it most likely. it's the conservatives way to power
His parents were British diplomats at the time, and were unable to safely get back before the birthing process. Nonetheless, they did not lose their right to pass on their UK citizenship (even if non-Tory voters don’t like him) to their children. However, as a natural-born citizen of the United States of America, he had to go to the effort of explicitly revoking his citizenship.
It's always annoyed me that the British citizenship test is basically just an obscure trivia pub quiz rather than something which actually tests the understanding of cultural and moral values of our society and law. Sure a few questions scrape the surface of a couple basic values, but really don't get into anything of substance about what it means to actually live as an upstanding citizen in the UK.
And sure, morality is more subjective and could be prone to corruption, but if you are concerned with immigration and settlement surely it is more important that they know that we are committed to values of liberty, equality, and accountability, over if they know who Charles I is? Moral compatibility is surely more important by a substantial margin.
Edit: then again, the current government probably doesnt want the British public to think about our devotion to the three values stated above, prevents them from doing what they want.
Very surprised that a newsperson was struggling with Gilbert and Sullivan. Premier political satirists.
from the late 19th Century....
@@ThePereubu1710 But "The Major General's Song" is such a classic! Even if you have never heard anything else from them, surely nearly everyone has heard that. Of course, maybe people don't know who wrote it.
The only reason I know _of_ them is because of the Mass Effect series' character Mordin Solus' infatuation with one of their songs.
But I'm not British, so I guess I'm excused (even though I have lived in England for 18 years).
@@ohkay8939 I am not British either (although I did pass the test!) but maybe it is an age thing (I am 62).
@@zork999 The whole of Iolanthe A total piss take of the monarchy and the houses.
It all seems so very subtle now but this was scandalous stuff. Sullivan got a Knighthood for the music. WS Gilbert who wrote the lyrics did not. He was not allowed in polite society.
The "I'll be in rwanda" joke is so underrated
I had to take the test in late-2020. My partner, who is Scottish, was struck with the kinds of questions and details noted in the practice tests and the book. The primary criticism we both had was how English-centric the book was. There were details about England that really had absolutely no relevance to life in Scotland. The same criticism was levelled in reverse, where a friend in Kent who took the test was unhappy with some of the minutae of details about Scottish life she had to know. In the end, the test I ended up taking had around 18/24 questions focused on Scottish life, and that made it remarkably easy... but that detail about being regionalised is not well publicised!!
In contrast, the Canadian citizenship test focuses on topics that are relevant and apply to all Canadians, and they explicitly have a section of questions that relate to the province you've chosen to settle in. That test isn't perfect either, but at least there's not the same sense of frustration of being expected to know a lot of details about a part of the country you have never lived in, and don't intend to live in either.
(And it's not that unknown that Edinburgh Castle is managed by Historic Scotland. At least for me - I have a membership with Historic Scotland though!)
And since National Trust Scotland is a separate organisation - it makes it easier to remove that option !
Citizenship in Denmark requires 10 years of legal residency in the country, permanent residence permit, full-time employment in 4 straight years (no pauses), a similar “society and history test”, not having received social benefits and level A in the Danish language.
The permanent resident permit, which is a requirement for the citizenship, is also full of requirements, can only be received after 4-8 years of legal residency in the country, 4 years of employment, another “social and history knowledge” test and so on. You’ll easily spend at least 2.000 pounds with all the fees for the Danish citizenship. I’m lucky to be highly educated and the citizenship for me was just a matter of patience, but the average immigrant has no chance.
To be fair, the British citizenship seems quite reasonable.
I'm curious is there any questions about British culture or traditions?
If i created test for my country these questions definitely would be included .
Yes there is something about who invented soap
There used to be one about pub culture iirc
but which "culture and traditions"? Scottish? English? Welsh? Working-class? Middle-class? Northern English? Cornish? There are many "traditions" from one part of the country which wouldn't be known in another.
I took the test a few months ago and passed it with ease. I would say the time spent studying for the test gave me a greater appreciation of the UK that I did not have despite having grown up here. Taking everything into account, I think the test was actually pretty well designed.
I love how this was half knowledge and half test taking skills
I feel like it's designed for us who were trained to take tests from age 0
"Name two islands closely linked to but not part of the UK."
"Channel islands."
"Incorrect. You didn't say Isle of Man."
"... That's THREE islands."
There are people on 7 of the Channel Islands
Being from Jersey the sheer number of times that the UK government has been wrong about our constitutional relationships to the UK in recent years is hugely depressing. Clearly this is a problem that runs all the way down if the home office are lumping Jersey & Guernsey together which is incorrect. We each have our own governments and laws. In total there are about 170,000 people in the Channel Islands so it’s not an insignificant slight.
@@Noodle344 They aren't lumping you together, they are saying you both have complicated relations to the UK Government, along with the Isle of Man.
It seemed that, without any preparation, I failed the test. A couple of years ago, I looked into a similar test for German naturalisation. The government there helps you a lot to prepare for it, the objective not being to fail anyone, but rather to help everyone to be better equipped to fit in as a new German citizen. Official websites are provided for you to take mock-tests. They also provide the list of all possible questions and their correct answers. On purpose, I took my first test without any preparation. I passed extreme Ely comfortably. Then i studied the list of possible questions (which is not unduly long) and I passed without any mistakes. The test is in German, therefore à reasonably fluent level of German is a must. The biggest difficulty is for the candidates whose mother-tongue' script is not the Latin script. Deciphering the questions will require more time for many of them, which is a disadvantage as the test has a time limit. Nevertheless, very few candidates fail, and all have learnt something useful.
I've taken practice tests for the UK and US versions of this test. I passed both but despite having British citizenship I scored much higher on the US version. Way too many weird ones on the British test.
Isn't the UK weird too?
Comparing the American citizenship test and UK citizenship test is just funny. Don't get me wrong, there's a few things on the UK one that are solid test questions, but most of it seemed to be random bullshit. The American one on the other hand focuses on your fundamental rights and the workings of government and the legal system, with only a few bs history questions that don't really matter. TBF this is coming from an American, however it's also coming from an American who plans to dip the country in around a year.
An interesting part is I failed the British citizenship test. but when I took the British citizenship test unofficially a second time and had it adjusted for Scotland. I passed
So unofficial. Am officially Scottish, but not British. 🏴
If your not British, but are Scottish, where is the Scotland you now live in?
Because I'm sure geography wise, Scotland does reside in the British Isles, and as such, is part of the big chod of it called "Great Britain", so, officially, you are actually a "Briton", but we tend to use the word "British" now over that.
Just saying! ;)
@@Denathorn i’m aware of that. I’m aware that Scotland is part of the British Isles. I’m still classed as a British citizen. Just because I failed a British citizenship test. Doesn’t mean anything I’m still a British citizen by birth.
Do you what other country is part of the British Isles but is not British. the Republic of Ireland.
@@kacywatson6314 well why did you say you were Scottish and not British? 😂🤣😂 Both sides of the same coin
@천사 Is it really… I’ve been to Scotland more then you have I bet… Being from County Durham, it’s quite literally a pop across the border and visit quite regularly to Edinburgh for long weekends… I know the history of my country and yes, it hasn’t been all fun and games over the eons! But I ask… How do you know all Scot’s find being called British offensive? How many have you asked?
Now, some nationalists may take offensive at being called British, that is their nature, but my general perception is that, there’s a silent majority that just gets on with it, and like myself (but English), they are Scottish first (like I’m English first), then British, then European… All geographic in nature not racial like your leaning towards!
So, if you don’t mind, go away…
Thanks!
"What is the Latin name for the species of fish used in Fish and Chips?" "What exactly is the use of a rubber duck?" "What is a muggle?"
Don't worry, we in the Netherlands have the same sort of stupid questions in our citizenship test.
Cod. To float in the bath. Someone who isn't a wizard.
@@simontay4851 Gadus morhua.
The fact that you've put the red passport in the video rather than the blue one cheered me up.
My wife was thinking of doing it but it's absolutely mad. You'd have to study for a test that should be solvable if you live in the bloody culture in the first place.
You would think. However, I think Ben needs to listen to The Mikado and HMS Pinafore :)
It's not that hard to be honest. And to be fair if you have been living in the UK for 5 years and have been paying attention you would be able to answer easily a few of the questions. The hardest part is history, but if you study from their official guide it should be doable.
yh like anyones gonna know when the henry the 8th took the crown i guarantee 99% british will get it wrong unless you study or watch history docs
I am the very model of a modern major general ...
I know way too much stuff about Britain. I live a quarter of the way around the planet.
@@gahane and perhaps do the last night of the proms to discover Elgar.
I actually did this test about 3 months ago.
To study for it. There is this government supported website you can pay monthly.There you can do the test that is very similar to the final one. I did that test about 40 times in row. On last 5 tried I got 100%.
During actual test, it took me about 5 minutes and I have passed. They did not tell me my score.
Pretty big waste of time, I already forgot most answers :)
I have a question, are the questions asked quite similar to the practice you have done in the government supported website? I have a test and I’m really anxious
I thought that in the UK all metric measures were always legal, and that imperial measures are also legal in some situations.
If this is the case, then people in the UK are not obliged to know the distance both in miles and in KM.
Or to know the conversion rate between miles and KM.
And the question about the distance between the north coast of Scotland and the South-West corner of England should be both in miles and in KM.
This means that this question should be illegal.
Beer can only be served (retail) in Imperial pints, regardless of whether or not other SI units are legal in commerce.
It sucks how expensive the whole ordeal is, the test is merely one part of the citizenship process
I wonder if the point of this is to get people to learn other things by stealth. While you're learning the length of the country within 30 mile accuracy, you'll also learn about lands end and John o groats. While learning the year Henry VIII came to the throne, you'll find out that our monarchy are descended from murderous lunatics. You know, stuff that's good to be generally aware of.
the point is to keep people out by making them fail obtuse questions.
Unless they’re smart enough to be able to read and understand English and answer a series of random historical and cultural questions.
The Us citizenship test is about understanding how the government and civics work.
@@robertb6889 which is a memory test as they get a book you study apparently holding the answers. As you point out it should be about knowing government, civic and rights stuff and understanding the language. Not something about knowing Turing, a man the British government castrated for the crime of being gay.
Brit in France here, it's not just a British thing ALL my French friends failed the French citizen test !! Lol
French citizen test ?????
@@jamesoumar ? What, do you think they don't have them and just give citizenship out for free !
this test is a joke though, i can gurantee most brittish citizens would fail this by a large margin
"What is the good and proper way to have a pint?"
"What finger is allowed to be extended when having tea?"
"How many Welshmen are allowed in Kensington at one time?"
"How many Corgis will the Queen schedule for photo ops every week?"
I am so happy that when I did the test, there was no questions about HMS pinafore and poetry and shit. I would have failed miserably. As it was, it took longer for the lady to grope me and verify my identity than the test itself.
I followed along the quiz and passed the test - and I'm not even plan to become a British citizen
As with every single naturalisation test, so many of these questions are "who knows, who cares?".
1 question: “can you stab someone in London”?
2 question: “what was William Shakespeare favorite food”?
Is question 1 asking if I am physically and psychologically able to or legally able to? Because the answers are "yes" and "if it's against a Frenchman", respectfully.
I need to turn up and claim my citizenship because I actually got most of these right. The Modern Society section is where I fell short; the questions seem very random and quite ridiculous.
"How can you visit the Welsh Assembly?" You cannot. You are too late. It is now the Welsh Senedd (Parliament), so that question is out of date to start with.
Since there were no quote marks enclosing “Assembly”, any word meaning that would be accurate, even thing (provided you spoke Norse, Faroese, or Icelandic) or Reichstag.
I past it first time. It was like a trip through memory lane because I did history in the U.K. Although some of the questions now are harder then when I took the test and more irrelevant.
*passed
"There's 40 questions, you need at least 75 correct to pass"
Sounds legit.
Unfortunately I'd say the rape question is the sort of one that should be in there and there should be more of them. Questions about laws and rights that might be different in other countries rather than historical trivia.
Agreed.
Trivia about history, sports, tourist attractions, etc. is completely irrelevant. Ensuring that people understand what is legally acceptable in the UK, and what is considered morally acceptable even if not directly covered by legislation, is far more important.
Which Prime minister said “hand, face, party at my place”?
“There are 40 questions. You need at least 75 correct to pass”
The empire deserved to die. We’re fecking awful at maths.
I guess that would be 75 percent. clearly out of the box thinking is also not British😮
I thought it meant 75 guesses. Getting all 40 correct without doubting your answers means you're too posh to be British.
I completed this test in less than seven minutes and, although they won't tell you the actual score, the person interviewing me for citizenship intimated that I had gotten 100%.
This test is clearly designed to weed out certain demographics which I would suggest is most likely to be persons of color, not character or integrity. That said I wonder how many UKIP suporters would successfully complete this. I also wonder how many British ex pats in their country of domicile could complete an identical test of the country they live in. In my opinion this is just "ukipism" masquerading as patriotism. The notion that a would be citizen should have to "qualify" using a measure that rank and file indigenous residents would likely not, is odious. What next?
Perhaps any immigrants entering Rawanda across it's borders will be given a Rawandan "test" about it's not so distant, violent and corrupt civil life. Perhaps if they fail that test they will be put on a plane to Heathrow and offered unconditional British citizenship?
Only we could come up with such nonsense. I'm glad TDLR exposed the pomposity of such a ridiculous exercise.
Of course play the race card
@@corradomancini3271 If it lokks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. It's not a "card" (false claim that is routinely advanced without evidence).
Your jibe is precisely what you are projecting to muddy the water. That's why TDLR forensically upend the "logical fallacies" that masquerade "reasonable practice" and when you don't like it you toss in a tired trope (race card) to hide behind. Well it's a crumpled fig leaf that pays it's user no credit in the arena of debate that is not further than a barstool in a Ukip sympathy pub.
@@j.j.1064 It’s nothing to do with ukip
@@j.j.1064
The U.K. got thousands of Men and women of every colour, heritage and religious faith in the House of Commons, in the House of Lords, in Judiciary, Law enforcement agencies, in the armed Forces, educators in our universities, Doctors, surgeons and in any position in society. Great Britain is the least racist and the least xenophobic country in Europe. The above facts confirm the fallacy and illogicality of any comment you’re implying & what you are saying.
"which British explorer mapped the coast of Australia?" Mathew Flinders. Not on the list.