By Debbie McGoldrick

What did Susan B. Anthony do? What did the abolitionists try to end before the Civil War? What Cabinet-level agency advises the president on foreign policy? When must all males register for Selective Service?

Those aspiring to become U.S. citizens in the future will have to know the answers to these questions and more, as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has reached the final stage of crafting a new naturalization exam with the announcement last week of a pilot test that will be unveiled in 10 cities starting in January.

The new test, which consists of 144 possible questions that could be asked about U.S. history and civics as opposed to the 100 which have been used since 1986, was unveiled after a six-year effort by USCIS (and its previous incarnations) to standardize the test and make it “more meaningful.” In other words, a bit more difficult!

“We found that the current naturalization exam process lacks standardization and encourages applicants to memorize facts just to pass a test, but that doesn’t guarantee that they understand the meaning behind the question,” said USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez. “Our goal is to inspire immigrants to learn about the civic values of this nation so that after they take the oath of citizenship they will participate fully in our great democracy.”

Mr. Gonzales does have a point. Questions like “what are the colors of our flag?” are ridiculously basic and could be answered by a child. The pilot exam expects citizenship candidates to be more keenly aware of both current issues (for example, that the U.S. minimum wage stands at $5.15 per hour), and past history (Dwight Eisenhower was the World War II general who later became president.)

The new exam will be ushered in on a trial, voluntary basis early in the New Year. The 10 cities selected for the pilot were chosen based on geographic region and volume of citizenship applications. They are Albany, New York, Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Denver; El Paso, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri.; Miami; San Antonio, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; and Yakima, Washington.

Citizenship candidates in those cities can volunteer to take the new pilot exam, or they can request to be tested based on the current 100 questions that the USCIS uses for tests. If they volunteer for the pilot and fail, they can be tested on the current exam during the same interview.

The pilot’s 144 questions include 57 questions from the current exam which have been rephrased. For example, “what do the stars on the flag mean?” has been rephrased as “why does the flag have 50 stars?” (Answer: to represent the 50 states).

Once the pilot period concludes sometime in the middle of next year, the results will be examined, and a new, final version of the naturalization test will be unveiled for nationwide use in the spring of 2008. The 144 questions will again be pared down to 100.

Requirements of the naturalization exam itself will remain the same. An applicant will be required to correctly answer six of the 10 questions asked by a USCIS examiner.

Also, the English knowledge requirement remains in place, with applicants having to correctly read and write a sentence in English, receiving three chances to do so. But the element to this portion of the test will change, as the sentence will focus on civics and history as opposed to the anything goes aspect currently in place. USCIS will soon publish a vocabulary list to help with this portion of the exam.

To read more about the naturalization changes, and to peruse the 144 questions, visit www.uscis.gov.

(FYI – the answers to the questions that opened this column are as follows – she fought for women’s rights; they tried to end slavery; the Cabinet agency is the State Department; when they turn 18 years old.)