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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Can Biden just change the tests back to the old ones?
I'd hope so. Tests for citizenship should have one purpose only — showing whether a prospective citizen has gained an appropriate amount of the knowledge necessary to be a properly functioning citizen of a country. So, for example, questions about what rights a citizen of the United States would have are appropriate (though the list of correct answers should be properly inclusive), but questions about presidential history are not.
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Now, I'm not an immigrant, or an American for that matter, but I have friends who are. According to them, the tests have already been extremely biased against anything leftist related (which is why I wonder how they could have made them even more biased), so I don't think that just changing them back to how they were would be good enough.
Edited by djoki996 on Dec 7th 2020 at 6:10:37 AM
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Yeah, that would be for the best. In my opinion (again, keep in mind, not an American, so take my opinion with a grain of salt) they should tests knowledge of constitution, laws, some history (I really don't think knowing the name of every single president USA had is absolutely necessary) etc.
Edited by djoki996 on Dec 7th 2020 at 6:20:27 AM
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That is mostly what the current test does. There's 100 questions, and whoever is running your exam selects 10 questions to ask, and you have to get 6 right.
I took it for a test in middle school, and the focus is mostly on government (stuff about the role/important members of the three branches and a bunch of trivia related to each), the Constitution/Bill of Rights/Declaration of Independence, US History (naming Presidents, important historical events and figures), a bit about US geography.
Most questions, you only have to get one or two out of all the right answers. For example, one question asks about Native American tribes, and naming one will suffice.
When your friends say the test is anti-leftist, they probably mean in the sense that it very much has a mainstream view of US government and history and the subtext includes quite a bit of glorification of the Founders/Constitution etc. And there's a surprising amount of focus on wars the US has fought, in almost unnecessary detail.
Edited by nova92 on Dec 7th 2020 at 6:35:06 AM
It's a stupid easy test, all things considered. A written part of a typical driving test is more difficult.
About the only thing the test really confirms is whether or not you care enough about citizenship to spend a few hours studying the questions.
Edited by M84 on Dec 7th 2020 at 10:37:06 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedIncorrect. Even the new 2020 version doesn't ask if you were ever an actual member of one of those parties.
It does have shit like this though:
- Communism
- Nuclear war
110. Why did the United States enter the Korean War?
- To stop the spread of communism
111. Why did the United States enter the Vietnam War?
- To stop the spread of communism
Edited by M84 on Dec 7th 2020 at 10:40:28 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised(Natural-born American here, for perspective.) I question the wisdom of including history questions on the test. A lot of the other stuff makes sense. Knowing how the government works, what's in the Constitution (to a reasonable extent), other appropriate laws, and the like... that's all called for. The history knowledge seems less so, because while that knowledge does have its purposes, it seems a lot less necessary to be able to function as a citizen.
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That's not part of the citizenship test. You're ineligible for citizenship, if you've been a member of a communist party in the past decade, but socialist parties are not part of the restriction, and that's separate from the test.
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Q109 was a part of the previous test, but the extended focus on Communism is certainly eyebrow-raising.
Edited by nova92 on Dec 7th 2020 at 6:45:04 AM
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The focus on communism is weird given that Trump himself cozies up with Communist dictators like Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un. I bet Trump also keeps copies of Mao Zedong's works even if he claims to be "tough" on China.
Biden is the actual president who will be tough on China. Not Trump.
"Wow, no Mega Togekiss in Legends Z-A. Or any non-Froslass new Sinnoh Mega Evolutions. Round of applause, everybody." - DawnThe fact Trump may in fact be a Manchurian Candidate from communist strongman regimes makes this whole thing feel like Tom Clancy wrote the past four years. Except Tom would be confused as fuck with the Republicans being the party bought and sold by communists.
Not even good Tom Clancy either. The shitty Tom Clancy where the Democratic leader is a fat rich rapist.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 7th 2020 at 7:08:30 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.To be fair, the CCP is no longer "communist" in most senses of the word. Xi is an authoritarian with frankly fascist leanings who arguably has more in common with the GOP than he does with Mao. The closest thing to an old-style Cold War communist dictatorship that comes to mind in the modern world is the Maduro regime in Venezuela, which Republicans do genuinely hate.
