Recently, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services launched its pilot project to standardize the United States citizenship exam. According to the BCIS, this is an effort to create a test that will be fair, consistent, and meaningful and to level the playing field for citizenship applicants nationwide.

Immigrants seeking to become Americans are administered English, government, and U.S. history tests. They must demonstrate a basic understanding of English, including the ability to read, write, and speak the language. In addition, they must know the fundamentals of U.S. history and government. The first phase of the two-stage pilot focuses on the English language portion of the test. A professional test development company is working with the BCIS and Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Antonio, Atlanta and Newark have been selected to participate in this first phase.

The BCIS believes that the applicants should come to the test fully prepared, without the location of the examination being a factor. An administrator randomly chooses the test questions from a pre-approved list. There is no standardized testing format or method and the content and procedures vary from officer to officer and from office to office. Gerri Ratliff, the BCIS project director for the test redesign, said “whether you’re a citizenship applicant in Sacramento or San Antonio, you should have the same expectations about what kind of test you will experience.”

The goal is to have a newly revamped and more relevant standardized naturalization test in place by late 2004.