Civics and Other Imports

If you are a digital subscriber to The New York Times, then you might have seen this piece on its web site Thursday.  In case you do not subscribe - or if you do and simply missed this piece - I thought it might be a fun way to spend a few minutes on a Sunday morning.  

I subscribe to the theory that an informed electorate is critical to our Republic operating with a modicum of functionality.  In the month-plus since Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump to gain election as our nation's 46th President, I have been mystified and mortified by the apparent ignorance many possess regarding what I had long presumed to be well-known, familiar processes and procedures. Truthfully, the ignorance would itself have been easy to overlook had it not been expressed repeatedly and loudly.  

The present administration has toughened the test for becoming a United States citizen, which is something with which I, for one, take no issue.  If one wants to become a citizen of a particular country, then requiring that person to pass a test that is harder than a pee test but significantly easier than any of the Twelve Labours of Hercules seems to me to be a fair, reasonable requirement. The 2020 version of the Civics Test includes twenty questions drawn from a pool of 128 possible questions, of which a person applying for citizenship must answer twelve correctly.  The testing materials one can review in preparation for the exam include the 128 questions and their answers. 

It is an oral exam.  A lifetime ago, Mrs. K assured me that "60%" was not a passing score in Pre-Calculus.  60% is, however, a passing score on the Civics Test.  Fun fact:  Even if 60% had been a passing score in Mrs. K's Pre-Calculus class, I still failed.    

But I digress.  

How would you do on the oral Civics Test.  Based upon a lot of what I have heard and I have read these past thirty-plus days, to borrow a line from the Poet Laureate of the Jersey Shore, it certainly appears that, "You guys in trouble out here".  Maybe?  Then again, maybe not.  The piece in The Times referenced in the first paragraph of this essay provides its reader the opportunity to answer nine questions, which the paper put in multiple-choice form to make it a bit easier:

1 of 9

James Madison is famous for many things. Name one.

President during the War of 1812

Fifth president of the United States

Writer of the Declaration of Independence

First Secretary of State

2 of 9

The American Revolution had many important events. Name one.

Washington crossing the Delaware

Battle of Tippecanoe

Battle of Fort Niagara

The Treaty of Ghent

3 of 9

What is the purpose of the 10th Amendment?

It guarantees the rights of criminal defendants.

It states that the powers not given to the federal government belong to the states or to the people.

It abolished slavery.

It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

 4 of 9

Whom does a member of the House of Representatives represent?

People living in their state

People living in their congressional district

Citizens in their congressional district

Their political party

5 of 9

Who appoints federal judges?

The Chief Justice

The Senate

The President

The Attorney General

6 of 9

How many Supreme Court justices are usually needed to decide a case?

Four

Five

Six

Nine

7 of 9

The Civil War had many important events. Name one.

The Missouri Compromise

The Trail of Tears

The Battle of Little Bighorn

Sherman’s March

8 of 9

Name one leader of the women’s rights movement in the 1800s.

Clara Barton

Eleanor Roosevelt

Mary Baker Eddy

Sojourner Truth

9 of 9

The Nation’s first motto was “E Pluribus Unum.” What does that mean?

We the people

Self-government

Out of Many, One

One Nation, Indivisible

Spoiler alert:  I passed!  I presume that you did too.  Even so, keeping the list of 128 questions and answers handy is probably not a bad idea.  Useful tool to have handy to make certain you stay sharp on subject matter that you might not know as well as you once did or, perhaps, have never known as well as you might have believed you did.  

My copy is in the top left drawer of my desk. 

-AK