

How I Passed My U.S. Citizenship Test: By Keeping the Right Answers to Myself - danso
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-i-passed-my-us-citizenship-test-by-keeping-the-right-answers-to-myself

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rm999
>Why does the flag have 13 stripes? The official answer: "because there were
13 original colonies." In fact, the flag has 13 stripes for the 13 original
states.

Maybe I misunderstand the point, but Delaware was the first state to be
granted statehood in 1787, a full 10 years after the "Betsy Ross" flag with 13
stripes was in use. If you're going to write a super-pedantic article, you
should be super-accurate too.

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5555624
In that case, though, the "Betsy Ross" flag was not the United States flag,
since they were not states.

Anyway, when the number of stripes was set at 13, it could very well be
because of the 13 original states. After all, it was replacing a flag with 15
stripes. (When Vermont and Kentucky became states, both stars and stripes were
added, so the flag -- of "Star Spangled Banner" fame --had 15 stripes.)

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bradleyjg
There's a famous story, possibly apocryphal, about Kurt Gödel going to his
citizenship exam accompanied by Einstein and another friend.

The story goes that he had studied the Constitution and come to the conclusion
that it was flawed, and contained a loophole that would allow the President to
become a dictator (given the role the Weimar Constitution played in Hitler
rise to power, this would not have been an altogether silly concern). He
wanted to explain that the to the judge who was examining him, but he was
finally convinced by his friends that it wouldn't be a good idea.

~~~
6cxs2hd6
Gödel believed there could be a complete and consistent set of axioms for
government? :)

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TallGuyShort
When I took my test, most of the people in the waiting room were struggling
with basic English. They tested my ability to write English by asking me to
write the phrase, "The US flag has 50 stripes", but I got it wrong because I
wrote "fifty" instead of using Arabic numerals, and they awkwardly discussed
whether or not to tell me my mistake and ask me to redo it, or fail me. They
tested my ability to read by showing me three similar sentences, reading one
aloud, and having me point at the one they had read. The test questions and
answers are published online for the same types of people who might be
challenged by these questions: people who haven't patiently gone through the
whole process. None of it really assesses your ability to communicate in
America or participate in the democratic process.

This article feels like picking at the unlikelihood of the legal situation in
Dr. Doolittle. "Animals have been talking this whole time..." \-- Josh Sneed.

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TallGuyShort
edit: I believe the phrase would have been "50 stars", not "50 stripes". THAT
would be a flagrant error in the test :)

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wmoser
I've taken numerous (1 EPA, 2 FCC, 16 USCG) government administered tests and
they are all have these poorly written, blatantly wrong answers. Fortunately,
with larger question pools and more questions on a test it doesn't throw your
final score off if you get one or two where the wrong answer. I wouldn't want
to take a test with 100 question pool and only 10 questions.

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dangoldin
I expected this to be something more abstract so the concrete examples of
factual inaccuracies were interesting.

My dad claims to have answered that the US was a financial oligarchy when
asked what type of government the US had on his citizenship test but I suspect
that was a joke.

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Sae5waip
"a tremendous honor" \-- wait, what?

Why should becoming a citizen of a country be "an honour"?

(Especially when the country in question is the US; it fits the "US americans
are superior humans" theme just right, even when realistically it doesn't seem
to be something to be proud of... but that's besides the point.)

~~~
astrodust
Becoming a citizen of any country, be it Canada, Australia or Iceland, is an
honour. The only reason you go through this painful process is because you
_want_ it.

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pgsandstrom
The questions accepting both the correct answer and the slighly incorrect
answer I can understand. The "rule of law"-question, however, seemed more
serious. I really wonder how things like that come to be.

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jrockway
I'm guessing the test was not written by a lawyer, is how.

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gtCameron
Not only that, but its not intended to be answered by lawyers either. For a
bar exam that question wouldn't be a good one, for a test to see if someone
grasps the general concepts of how America works, it seems perfectly
reasonable.

