Dumbed-Down Citizenship Test: Harder to Fail, English Optional

The polyperverse disaster that's the Bush administration's immigration policy strikes again. 

Questions from the current citizenship exam are challenging. They can stump ill-prepared college students (and rattle some adults' cages as well). But that's interpreted as an "obstacle" to a more-welcoming policy. 

A hard exam just doesn't fit with the Open Wide to Criminals and Terrorists policy that Bush espouses, so they've dumbed the exam down -- way down. No more hard questions.

The official line is this: "to go beyond memorizing historical facts and instead grasp the fundamental meaning of being an American."

Any time educrats talk about "fundamental meaning," "deeper understanding," or "going beyond" anything, the experienced ear hears "a massive simplification is in the works."  In point of  fact, the real reason is here:

"More than 92 percent of the pilot group passed the test on the first attempt, far higher than ... the current exam."

How hard is it? They have to get sixty percent. Specifically, "Would-be citizens are asked 10 questions, and an immigrant must answer six correctly to pass the civics portion." In other words, to pass an applicant needs to get one more question than half right and half wrong.

There's also an English language portion, but there's a loophole the size of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building which will make sure that most applicants get a pass on it... "The test is administered in English, except for longtime residents over a certain age, who can take the test in their own language."

You read that right... come here, collect your amnesty, and we'll give you a kindergarten-level citizenship test in Spanish, Arabic, or the jawbreaker terrorist tongue of your choice.

Many of the 42 questions dropped between the pilot testing and the final set of 100 questions were eliminated because they were too difficult linguistically.

One dropped question inquired about the intent of the Federalist Papers, the newspaper articles written by three of the Founding Fathers to try to urge adoption of the Constitution. The committee that wrote the questions decided it was too difficult linguistically.... Also gone is a question about the United Nations, as are questions about the 50th state added to the union; the name of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to Massachusetts; and some questions about famous Americans...."

Not all famous Americans, though. The new questions include multi-culti quota questions. Pilgrims, Patrick Henry, Woodrow Wilson, and the Federalist Papers might be out, but Susan B. Anthony, the patron saint of bra-burning feminists everywhere, is in. So are trendy questions about slavery and Indians. 

Other questions are changed to, as a lawyer might say, "lead the witness." Here's the old Abe Lincoln question:

"Who was president during the Civil War?"  Simple enough, but too hard for today's unskilled- and uneducable-immigrant lobby. 

New question:

"What was one important thing that Abraham Lincoln did?"

For most of these questions, US Citizenship and Immigration Services dumbs the actual test down still further by accepting any lukewarm answer. Like, "got elected President".  Anything that hints you've ever kinda-sorta heard of the guy: "got his face on the nickel." "Got up and ate breakfast." "Built a log cabin." Which brings us to the de facto motto of US Customs and Immigration Services: "Whatever." 

I think history will be very kind to George W. Bush. But that's because the history will be written by Mexicans.

Here's the original article, with lots of spin about how wonderful the new, knowledge-lite test is. There are 150 other articles on Google News today saying basically the same thing. 

Note that the article's two pages long, you miss both some of the egregiousness of this, and some of the hail-happy-spin, by just reading the first. 

You can see the actual 100 questions here, courtesy of US CIS and the Kansas City Star (note that it's a .pdf).