US Citizenship Practice Test

Answer: D
Civics question 17 asks which branch the president leads, and that is the executive branch, the branch tasked with enforcing the laws Congress writes. The legislative branch is led by Congress itself rather than the president, the judicial branch is headed by the Chief Justice and the federal courts, and the National Guard normally falls under state governors' command rather than describing a branch of the federal government at all.

Answer: B
Civics question 47 asks what the Cabinet does, and its role is to advise the president on matters within each department's area. Writing and submitting the federal budget is a joint process running through the Office of Management and Budget and Congress, confirming judicial nominees is the Senate's job, and drafting and voting on legislation belongs to Congress, not to an advisory body inside the executive branch.

Answer: A
Civics question 36 asks how many years a presidential term lasts, and the answer is four. Six years is the length of a Senate term, not a presidential one; two years is a House term; and eight years is the maximum a president may serve in total across two terms under the 22nd Amendment, not the length of a single term.

Answer: A
Civics question 43 asks who signs bills into law, and that is the president, under the Constitution's presentment requirement in Article I. The Speaker of the House signs a bill only to certify it passed the House, not to enact it; the Supreme Court reviews laws for constitutionality after they take effect rather than certifying them beforehand; and the Senate Majority Leader has no signing role at all in turning a bill into law.

Answer: A
Civics question 21 asks for the total number of U.S. senators, which is one hundred, two from each of the fifty states. Ninety-six was the count only when the Union had forty-eight states, before Alaska and Hawaii joined in 1959; fifty would be true only if each state sent a single senator, but the Constitution gives every state two; and four hundred thirty-five is the fixed size of the House of Representatives, not the Senate.

Answer: D
Civics question 52 asks for the highest court in the country, which is the Supreme Court, whose rulings on federal law and the Constitution are final. The Courts of Appeals sit one level below the Supreme Court and review district-court decisions, the Court of Federal Claims is a specialized trial court for money claims against the government, and U.S. District Courts are the entry-level trial courts in the federal system, all subordinate to the Supreme Court.

Answer: B
Civics question 24 asks how many voting members sit in the House, and the number has been fixed at four hundred thirty-five since the Reapportionment Act of 1929. One hundred is the Senate's size, not the House's; five hundred thirty-five is the combined total of the House and Senate together rather than the House alone; and four hundred understates the actual number Congress has used for over a century.

Answer: B
Civics question 42 asks who commands the U.S. military, and Article II makes the president the Commander in Chief. The Secretary of Defense manages the Department of Defense under the president's civilian authority, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs advises on military strategy without holding command authority, and the vice presidency carries no military command role at all.

Answer: B
Civics question 59 asks for a power reserved to the states, and providing schooling and education is one of USCIS's listed answers, alongside police and fire protection, driver's licenses, and zoning. Printing money, declaring war, and setting foreign policy are all powers the Constitution gives only to the federal government, making them the reverse of what this question is asking for.

Answer: B
Civics question 58 asks for a power that belongs only to the federal government, and printing paper money is one of the listed answers, alongside minting coins, declaring war, and making treaties. Issuing driver's licenses, approving local zoning, and setting school curriculum are all powers the Constitution leaves to the states rather than reserves to Washington, which is exactly the federal-versus-state distinction this question tests.

Answer: B
Civics question 16 asks for the three branches of the federal government, which are legislative, executive, and judicial, also acceptable as Congress, the president, and the courts. Federal, state, and local describe the levels of American government rather than its branches; naming the House, Senate, and presidency leaves out the judicial branch while splitting Congress into two; and calling the military, police, and courts the enforcement branches confuses law-enforcement agencies with the constitutional branches the Constitution actually creates.

Answer: C
Civics question 48 asks for two Cabinet-level positions, and Secretary of State together with Secretary of the Treasury are both on USCIS's list, alongside roles such as Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security. The Speaker and Senate Majority Leader lead Congress rather than a Cabinet department, the Chief Justice and Solicitor General work within the judicial and legal system rather than the Cabinet, and the FBI Director and Federal Reserve Chair head independent agencies that sit outside the Cabinet entirely.

Answer: A
Civics question 40 asks who succeeds a president who can no longer serve, and under the 25th Amendment that is the vice president. The Speaker of the House is next in the statutory line of succession only if both the presidency and vice presidency are vacant, the Chief Justice merely administers the oath of office and has no role in succession, and the Senate Majority Leader holds no constitutional succession role at all.

Answer: D
Civics question 18 asks which part of the federal government writes laws, and that is Congress, also acceptable as the legislature or the legislative branch. The Supreme Court reviews whether laws are constitutional rather than writing them, a president's executive order directs how existing law is carried out rather than creating new statutes, and Justice Department guidelines govern how prosecutors apply the law rather than legislate.

Answer: A
Civics question 51 asks what the judicial branch does, and USCIS accepts that it reviews laws, explains laws, resolves disputes about the law, or decides whether a law conflicts with the Constitution. Writing statutes is Congress's job, not the courts'; day-to-day enforcement of court orders runs through executive-branch agencies such as the U.S. Marshals rather than the courts acting alone; and approving the federal budget belongs to Congress, which the judicial branch has no role in.

Answer: D
Civics question 35 asks why House representation varies by state, and USCIS accepts that it is because of the state's population or because some states simply have more people. There is no automatic two-seat bonus for large states, state legislatures do not set their own House delegation size since Congress reapportions seats nationally after each census, and representation is tied to population counted in the census rather than to how much tax revenue a state sends to Washington.

Answer: D
Civics question 73 accepts freedom, political liberty, religious freedom, economic opportunity, or escaping persecution as a reason colonists came to America. The Crown made no guaranteed land grant to every arriving colonist, there was no conscription duty that brought colonists to America since many came specifically to escape such obligations, and no royal apprenticeship program existed as a reason for settlement.

Answer: B
Civics question 77 accepts reasons including high taxes, taxation without representation, quartering of British soldiers, lack of self-government, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and acts such as the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. There was no colonial dispute over an official language or an official religion driving independence, and no currency mandate from Britain triggered the break; the real grievances centered on taxation, representation, and self-government.

Answer: D
Civics question 85 accepts that Franklin founded the first free public libraries, served as the first U.S. Postmaster General, helped write the Declaration of Independence, worked as an inventor, or served as a U.S. diplomat. Washington, not Franklin, was the first president and the Continental Army's commanding general, and Jefferson, not Franklin, was the Declaration's principal author, so those achievements belong to other founders rather than to Franklin.

Answer: B
Civics question 83 asks for a writer of the Federalist Papers, and USCIS accepts Madison, Hamilton, Jay, or Publius, the shared pen name the three writers used. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, a separate 1776 pamphlet urging independence rather than ratification; Patrick Henry actually opposed ratification as a leading Anti-Federalist; and Benjamin Franklin signed the finished Constitution but did not contribute essays to the Federalist Papers.

Answer: A
Civics question 82 asks what founding document was written in 1787, and that is the U.S. Constitution, drafted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The Declaration was adopted in 1776, well before the Convention; the Articles of Confederation had already been ratified in 1781 and were the very framework the 1787 Convention was meeting to replace; and the Bill of Rights was not ratified until 1791, four years after the Constitution itself.

Answer: A
Civics question 78 asks who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and that was Thomas Jefferson, chosen by the drafting committee to write the first version. Franklin and Adams both served on that five-member committee and offered edits, but neither was the principal drafter, and Washington was away commanding the Continental Army in 1776 and played no role in writing the document at all.

Answer: C
Civics question 81 asks applicants to name five of the thirteen original states, a list that runs from New Hampshire and Massachusetts down through Georgia. Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vermont, and Maine all joined the Union between 1791 and 1820, well after the original thirteen; Texas, California, Florida, Illinois, and Michigan joined even later, mostly in the nineteenth century; and Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, and Indiana were also admitted after 1787, so none of these three groups names an original state.

Answer: B
Civics question 79 asks when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and the Continental Congress adopted it on July 4, 1776. July 4, 1777 was the first anniversary rather than the adoption date, September 3, 1783 is when Britain formally recognized independence in the Treaty of Paris, and May 1775 is when the Second Continental Congress first convened, more than a year before independence was declared.

Answer: B
Civics question 74 asks who lived in America before Europeans arrived, and USCIS accepts American Indians or Native Americans, the peoples who had lived across the continent for thousands of years. Spanish missionaries and French fur traders were themselves European arrivals rather than the people already living there, and Viking explorers who reached North America around 1000 CE left no permanent year-round settlement, so neither group answers who was there first.

Answer: D
Civics question 86 accepts 'Father of Our Country,' first president, General of the Continental Army, or President of the Constitutional Convention as facts about Washington. Jefferson, not Washington, principally wrote the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton, not Washington, served as the first Secretary of the Treasury, and Jefferson again, not Washington, was the third president who doubled the country's size through the Louisiana Purchase.

Answer: B
This question draws on the same list as civics question 81: Connecticut was one of the thirteen original states, alongside states such as Virginia, New York, and Georgia. Ohio and Vermont both joined the Union in the 1790s, after the original thirteen ratified the Constitution, and Texas did not become a state until 1845, decades after the founding, so none of the three was among the original thirteen.

Answer: D
Civics question 75 asks which group was taken and sold as slaves, and USCIS accepts Africans or people from Africa, who were forcibly transported to the colonies beginning in the early seventeenth century. Indentured servants from England and Ireland entered a fixed term of unfree labor voluntarily rather than being taken and sold, prisoners of war from the French and Indian War were not the population subjected to the slave trade, and refugees fleeing religious persecution came to America seeking freedom rather than being enslaved upon arrival.

Answer: C
This question draws on the same list as civics question 88: serving as the fourth president, including during the War of 1812, is one of the facts USCIS credits to Madison, alongside co-writing the Federalist Papers. Hamilton, not Madison, was the first Treasury Secretary and architect of the national bank, Washington accepted the British surrender at Yorktown, and John Marshall, not Madison, served as Chief Justice, so none of those three facts describes Madison.

Answer: A
Civics question 88 accepts that Madison is called the 'Father of the Constitution,' served as fourth president, was president during the War of 1812, or co-wrote the Federalist Papers. Jefferson, not Madison, wrote the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton, not Madison, was the first Treasury Secretary who built the national bank, and Washington, not Madison, commanded the American forces that accepted the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781.

Answer: A
This question draws on the same list as civics question 77: British soldiers boarding and quartering themselves in colonists' houses is one of the grievances USCIS lists, alongside high taxes, taxation without representation, and acts such as the Stamp Act and Boston Tea Party. Britain never imposed a forced religious conversion on the colonists, colonial courts already generally followed English common law without any new wartime demand, and no British gold-only trade mandate appears among the causes of the break with Britain.

Answer: A
This question draws on the same list as civics question 87: doubling the country's size through the Louisiana Purchase is one of the achievements USCIS credits to Jefferson, alongside serving as third president, first Secretary of State, and founding the University of Virginia. Washington, not Jefferson, led the army at Yorktown, John Jay, not Jefferson, was the first Chief Justice, and the Bill of Rights was ratified by state legislatures rather than decided by a Senate tie-breaking vote.

Answer: D
Civics question 109 asks for a main U.S. concern during the Cold War, and USCIS accepts communism or nuclear war, the twin anxieties that shaped decades of American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union. Trade disputes with NATO allies, domestic oil shortages, and water-rights disputes with Mexico were all real policy issues at various points, but none was the defining Cold War concern the way the spread of communism and the threat of nuclear conflict were.

Answer: B
Civics question 112 asks what the civil rights movement did, and USCIS accepts that it fought to end racial discrimination. The federal minimum wage was established by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, decades before the movement's peak; women won the vote through the women's suffrage movement and the 19th Amendment in 1920; and the military draft ended in 1973 as a Vietnam-era policy change, none of which was an achievement of the civil rights movement itself.

Answer: B
Civics question 105 asks who was president during both the Great Depression and World War II, and that was Franklin Roosevelt, elected in 1932 and serving until his death in 1945. Hoover was president when the Depression began but left office in 1933, well before American entry into World War II; Truman succeeded Roosevelt only in April 1945, near the war's end; and Wilson served two terms that ended in 1921, well before either the Depression or World War II.

Answer: B
Civics question 115 asks what happened on September 11, 2001, and USCIS accepts that terrorists attacked the United States, including crashing hijacked planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. No major earthquake, stock market crash, or hurricane defines that specific date; those are different kinds of disasters that occurred on other occasions and are not what civics question 115 is asking about.

Answer: D
Civics question 108 asks for the main U.S. rival during the Cold War, and USCIS accepts the Soviet Union, the USSR, or Russia. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were the main adversaries of World War II, a conflict that ended in 1945 before the Cold War began, and while China played a role in the Korean War, USCIS names the Soviet Union specifically as the main Cold War rival rather than China.

Answer: A
Civics question 117 asks for the name of an American Indian tribe, and USCIS's list includes tribes such as Cherokee, Navajo, Sioux, Apache, and Seminole, among many others. The Zulu are an indigenous nation of southern Africa, the Maori are indigenous to New Zealand, and the Aztec were an indigenous people of central Mexico, none of them a tribe located within the United States.

Answer: D
Civics question 110 asks why the United States entered the Korean War, and USCIS's accepted answer is to stop the spread of communism, after North Korea invaded the South in 1950. Defending Kuwait describes the reason for the later Persian Gulf War, no attack on U.S. soil triggered the Korean War, and no mutual-defense treaty with Japan was the basis for U.S. involvement in Korea.

Answer: A
Civics question 113 accepts that King fought for civil rights, worked for equality for all Americans, or worked to ensure people would be judged by their character rather than their skin color. Barack Obama, not King, became the first African American president, Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation nearly a century before King's work, and the women's suffrage movement was led by figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton rather than King.

Answer: B
Civics question 103 asks what the Great Depression was, and USCIS describes it as the longest economic recession in modern history, stretching through most of the 1930s. It was not a brief panic that recovered within months, since unemployment and business failures persisted for years; it was not a single coordinated nationwide strike, since it was an economywide collapse in production and demand; and it was not triggered by an overnight abandonment of the gold standard, which the United States did not do in 1929.

Answer: D
This question draws on the same list as civics question 117: the Navajo are one of the American Indian tribes USCIS lists, alongside tribes such as Cherokee, Sioux, Apache, and Seminole. The Zulu, Maori, and Aztec are indigenous peoples of southern Africa, New Zealand, and central Mexico respectively, none of them a tribe located within the United States.

Answer: C
Civics question 106 asks why the United States entered World War II, and USCIS accepts the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or that the U.S. was supporting the Allied Powers against the Axis Powers. German attacks on U.S. civilian ships were the reason the U.S. entered World War I rather than World War II, no mutual-defense treaty with France triggered entry, and the United States never joined the League of Nations at all, since the Senate rejected membership after World War I.

Answer: B
Civics question 101 asks why the United States entered World War I, and USCIS accepts that Germany attacked U.S. civilian ships, or that the U.S. was supporting the Allied Powers against the Central Powers. Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan in 1941, drawing the U.S. into World War II instead, no Mexican invasion of U.S. territory triggered entry into World War I, and no British request to defend Pacific colonies was the reason, since the war's main fighting was centered in Europe.

Answer: D
This question draws on the same list as civics question 118: the assembly line, refined by Henry Ford to mass-produce automobiles, is one of the American innovations USCIS lists, alongside the light bulb, the airplane, skyscrapers, and the moon landing. Penicillin, the steam locomotive, and early television research are all credited to British, Scottish, or Russian inventors rather than American ones, so none of the three answers this question.

Answer: B
Civics question 102 asks when all women got the right to vote, and USCIS accepts 1920, after World War I, or with the 19th Amendment. The 15th Amendment of 1870 addressed voting rights by race rather than sex, 1776 predates any federal voting-rights amendment by more than a century, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act addressed discrimination broadly but was not the amendment that secured women's suffrage.

Answer: B
Civics question 104 asks when the Great Depression began, and USCIS accepts the Great Crash or the stock market crash of 1929. An earlier 1907 panic was a shorter banking crisis that did not touch off the Depression, the outbreak of World War I in 1914 predates the Depression by fifteen years, and the end of World War II in 1945 actually marks the period after the Depression had already ended, not its beginning.

Answer: B
This question draws on the same list as civics question 100: the Korean War is one of the twentieth-century wars USCIS lists, alongside World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War. The Civil War, the Mexican-American War, and the War of 1812 were all fought in the 1800s or earlier, none of them within the twentieth century this question asks about.

Answer: A
Civics question 4 asks what the Constitution's opening phrase means, and USCIS accepts self-government, popular sovereignty, or consent of the governed — the idea that political authority comes from the people themselves. Restricting participation to property owners describes an early state practice the phrase does not endorse, claiming the government is independent of the public inverts the phrase's meaning, and crediting state legislatures as the ultimate source of power ignores that the Preamble speaks in the people's own voice.

Answer: D
Civics question 2 asks for the supreme law of the land, and the U.S. Constitution holds that position: every statute, regulation, and state constitution must yield to it under the Supremacy Clause in Article VI. The Declaration announced independence but created no legal government, the Articles were the failed pre-1787 framework the Constitution replaced, and judicial precedent interprets the Constitution rather than outranking it.

Answer: C
Civics question 3 accepts any one of several things the Constitution does, and protecting the rights of the people is one of the listed answers, alongside forming the government and defining its powers and parts. Collecting taxes is a power Congress exercises under the Constitution rather than something the document itself does, appointing ambassadors is a presidential power the Constitution grants, and drawing state boundary lines is not a constitutional function at all.

Answer: A
Civics question 15 asks why government is split into three branches, and USCIS accepts separation of powers, checks and balances, or the idea that no one part should become too powerful. Giving the judicial branch final authority over the others describes judicial supremacy, not the balanced design the framers built; letting branches act without oversight is the opposite of checks and balances; and the three-branch structure came from the 1787 Constitutional Convention rather than from matching every state's earlier government.

Answer: C
Civics question 12 asks for the U.S. economic system, and USCIS accepts capitalism or a free market economy, where prices and production are driven mainly by private ownership and voluntary exchange rather than government planning. Central planning by production quota describes a command economy the United States does not operate, importing a specific Scandinavian legal model misdescribes the American system, and a barter economy ignores that the U.S. dollar is the country's standardized currency.

Answer: D
Civics question 6 asks what the Bill of Rights protects, and USCIS accepts the basic rights of Americans or of people living in the United States — the first ten amendments cover freedoms such as speech, religion, and due process. State seizure of federal land is not a Bill of Rights topic, presidential executive-order authority comes from Article II rather than the first ten amendments, and the taxing and commerce powers belong to Congress under Article I, not the Bill of Rights.

Answer: A
Civics question 5 asks how the Constitution changes, and the answer is through amendments — the amendment process laid out in Article V, which requires proposal by Congress or a convention and ratification by three-fourths of the states. The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution but cannot amend it by vote, a presidential executive order has no power to alter constitutional text, and the Constitution schedules no automatic decade referendum.

Answer: D
Civics question 14 accepts several documents that influenced the Constitution, including the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Mayflower Compact, and the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. The Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address both came from the Civil War era, decades after 1787, and the Monroe Doctrine is an 1823 foreign-policy statement about European colonization, so none of the three could have shaped a document already ratified in 1788.

Answer: A
This question tests the same list civics question 10 draws from: natural rights and limited government are both on USCIS's list of ideas shared by the Declaration and the Constitution, alongside equality, liberty, social contract, and self-government. Judicial review and federalism describe how the government operates rather than founding-era ideas on the list, manifest destiny and states' rights are nineteenth-century political positions, and eminent domain and due process are specific legal doctrines, none of which USCIS lists as an answer to this question.

Answer: B
Civics question 8 accepts that the Declaration says America is free from British control, that it says all people are created equal, or that it identifies inherent rights and individual freedoms. Abolishing slavery came later, through the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, creating the federal court system was accomplished by the Judiciary Act of 1789 under the new Constitution, and the three branches of government were established by the Constitution of 1787, not the 1776 Declaration.

Answer: B
Civics question 1 accepts republic, constitution-based federal republic, or representative democracy for the U.S. form of government: voters elect representatives who govern under a written constitution, and power is divided between national and state governments. A parliamentary system led by a prime minister describes governments such as the United Kingdom's, a direct democracy has citizens vote on laws themselves rather than through representatives, and a unitary state would strip the states of the independent authority federalism actually gives them.

Answer: B
Civics question 9 asks which founding document declared the colonies free from Britain, and that is the Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776. The Articles of Confederation organized the new government after independence was already declared, the Treaty of Paris is where Britain later acknowledged that independence in a peace agreement rather than where it was first proclaimed, and the Mayflower Compact was a 1620 self-government agreement among Plymouth settlers with no connection to independence from Britain.

Answer: B
This question draws on the same list as civics question 14: the Mayflower Compact, an 1620 self-government agreement among the Plymouth colonists, is one of the documents USCIS lists as an influence on the Constitution, alongside the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers. The Emancipation Proclamation, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Gettysburg Address all date from decades after the Constitution was ratified in 1788, so none of them could have shaped its drafting.

Answer: C
Civics question 10 asks for two important ideas shared by the Declaration and the Constitution, and USCIS lists equality, liberty, social contract, natural rights, limited government, and self-government as acceptable pairs. Judicial review and federalism are structural doctrines that later court decisions and constitutional design produced rather than founding ideas named on the list, manifest destiny and states' rights are nineteenth-century political arguments, and eminent domain and due process are specific legal doctrines rather than the founding-era ideas this question is asking about.

Answer: B
Civics question 11 asks where the phrase 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness' appears, and it is in the Declaration of Independence, naming the unalienable rights the document says all people possess. The Constitution's Preamble instead opens with 'We the People' and lists different goals such as forming a more perfect union, the Bill of Rights protects specific freedoms like speech and religion without using this phrase, and the Federalist Papers were essays urging ratification rather than a declaration of rights.

Answer: A
Civics question 7 asks how many amendments the Constitution has, and the correct count is twenty-seven, from the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791 through the Twenty-Seventh Amendment ratified in 1992. Twenty-one undercounts the total by six, thirty-three counts amendments Congress proposed but the states never ratified, and ten only reflects the Bill of Rights while ignoring the seventeen amendments ratified afterward.

Answer: D
Civics question 92 asks for the name of the war between the North and the South, which is the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865. The Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 were both fought against Britain rather than between Americans, and the Mexican-American War pitted the United States against Mexico, so none of the three was a war between the North and the South.

Answer: B
Civics question 95 asks what the Emancipation Proclamation did, and USCIS accepts that it freed the slaves, or more precisely freed slaves in the Confederacy or in most Southern states. It did not reach slavery in the loyal border states that stayed in the Union, so it fell short of abolishing slavery everywhere at once, that step came later with the 13th Amendment; it granted no voting rights, which arrived later still with the 15th Amendment; and it was a wartime executive order, not a truce that ended the fighting.

Answer: B
Civics question 99 accepts Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Lucretia Mott, or Lucy Stone as an 1800s women's rights leader. Eleanor Roosevelt was a twentieth-century figure active decades after the 1800s movement, Dorothea Dix devoted her reform work mainly to mental-health treatment rather than women's rights, and Clara Barton is remembered chiefly for founding the American Red Cross rather than leading the suffrage or women's rights cause.

Answer: D
Civics question 94 accepts that Lincoln freed the slaves through the Emancipation Proclamation, saved or preserved the Union, led the United States during the Civil War, served as the 16th president, or delivered the Gettysburg Address. Jefferson, not Lincoln, wrote the Declaration of Independence and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, and John Jay, not Lincoln, served as the first Chief Justice, all decades before Lincoln's presidency began in 1861.

Answer: C
Civics question 90 asks what territory the United States bought from France in 1803, and that is the Louisiana Territory, doubling the young nation's size. The Oregon Territory was settled with Britain by treaty in 1846, not purchased from France, the Gadsden Purchase came from Mexico in 1853, and Florida was acquired from Spain in 1819, so none of the three describes the 1803 deal with France.

Answer: C
This question draws on the same list as civics question 91: the Mexican-American War, fought from 1846 to 1848, is one of the 1800s wars USCIS lists, alongside the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. World War I, the Persian Gulf War, and the Vietnam War were all fought in the twentieth century, none of them within the 1800s this question asks about.

Answer: B
This question draws on the same list as civics question 99: Elizabeth Cady Stanton is one of the 1800s women's rights leaders USCIS lists, alongside Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Lucretia Mott, and Lucy Stone. Eleanor Roosevelt worked in the twentieth century, Dorothea Dix is remembered mainly for mental-health reform, and Clara Barton is remembered chiefly for founding the Red Cross, so none of the three is the 1800s women's rights leader this question asks for.

Answer: C
Civics question 98 asks when all men gained the right to vote, and USCIS accepts after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, with the 15th Amendment, or 1870, the year that amendment was ratified to bar denying the vote based on race. In 1776 most states still limited voting to property-owning white men, 1920 is when the 19th Amendment extended voting rights to women rather than men, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act addressed discrimination broadly but was not the amendment that secured Black men's voting rights.

Answer: D
Civics question 96 asks which war ended slavery, and that was the Civil War, whose conclusion in 1865 was followed by ratification of the 13th Amendment later that year. The Revolutionary War won independence from Britain nearly a century earlier without ending slavery, the War of 1812 was fought over maritime trade and impressment of sailors, and the Spanish-American War in 1898 concerned Spanish colonies, not American slavery.

Answer: C
Civics question 97 quotes the citizenship clause, which comes from the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery the year before, the 15th Amendment barred denying the vote based on race, and the 19th Amendment barred denying the vote based on sex, and none of those three amendments contains the citizenship-by-birth-or-naturalization language this question quotes.

Answer: A
This question draws on the same list as civics question 93: the Battle of Antietam, also known as Sharpsburg, is one of the Civil War events USCIS lists, alongside Fort Sumter, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Sherman's March, and the surrender at Appomattox. Pearl Harbor, the Treaty of Versailles, and the Cuban Missile Crisis all belong to twentieth-century conflicts, decades after the Civil War ended in 1865.

Answer: C
Civics question 91 accepts the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, or the Spanish-American War as a war the United States fought in the 1800s. World War I began in 1914, the Persian Gulf War was fought in 1991, and the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s, all falling in the twentieth century rather than the 1800s.

Answer: C
Civics question 93 accepts events including Fort Sumter, the Emancipation Proclamation, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Sherman's March, the surrender at Appomattox, Antietam, or Lincoln's assassination. Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, and the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in 1962, all many decades after the Civil War ended in 1865.

Answer: A
Civics question 64 asks who can vote in federal elections, run for federal office, and serve on a jury, and USCIS accepts citizens or U.S. citizens. Lawful permanent residents may live in the country for years without gaining these rights, since holding a green card is not citizenship; paying taxes is a duty every resident owes regardless of status and does not itself confer these rights; and naturalized citizens hold exactly the same voting, office-holding, and jury rights as citizens born in the United States, aside from the presidency.

Answer: B
Civics question 69 asks for two examples of civic participation, and USCIS lists voting, running for office, joining a political party or civic group, contacting elected officials, supporting or opposing an issue, and writing to a newspaper. Paying taxes, registering for Selective Service, serving on a jury, and obeying the law are civic duties USCIS lists under a different question about serving one's country, not under civic participation, and reciting the Pledge or the national motto is a patriotic observance rather than active participation in civic life.

Answer: B
Civics question 67 asks for two promises in the Oath of Allegiance, and USCIS accepts pairs drawn from giving up loyalty to other countries, defending the Constitution, obeying U.S. laws, serving in the military or the nation if needed, and being loyal to the United States. Citizenship carries no annual renewal fee or mandatory federal-election voting requirement, no oath clause requires learning a new language or a recurring background check, and there is no two-year mandatory service term or naturalization tax written into the Oath.

Answer: A
Civics question 72 asks for a reason men age 18 through 25 must register for the Selective Service, and USCIS accepts that it is required by law, that it is a civic duty, or that it makes a future draft fair if one is ever needed. Registering confers no automatic citizenship on a permanent resident, financial aid eligibility depends on separate rules rather than registration alone guaranteeing it, and the law requires registration from all men in that age range regardless of whether they intend to enlist voluntarily.

Answer: B
This question draws on the same list as civics question 65: freedom to petition the government is one of the rights USCIS lists as belonging to everyone living in the United States, alongside freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. A court-appointed attorney is a 6th Amendment guarantee in criminal cases, a unanimous jury verdict comes from state law and the 6th and 7th Amendments rather than the First, and the right to remain silent during questioning comes from the 5th Amendment, none of which is a First Amendment freedom this question is asking about.

Answer: A
Civics question 63 asks about one of four voting-related amendments, and USCIS accepts that citizens eighteen and older can vote (the 26th Amendment), that no poll tax is required (24th Amendment), that any citizen can vote regardless of sex (19th Amendment), or that race cannot bar a male citizen from voting (15th Amendment). Property ownership was never a federal constitutional voting requirement the amendments protect, literacy tests were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act and later amendments rather than preserved, and the 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes rather than permitting states to keep charging one.

Answer: D
Civics question 65 asks for three rights that belong to everyone living in the United States, not just citizens, and USCIS lists freedom of expression, speech, assembly, petition, religion, and the right to bear arms. Voting, running for federal office, and serving on a jury are rights reserved to citizens, the reverse of what this question asks; and there is no constitutional right to a public education, healthcare, housing, a government job, a minimum wage, or paid vacation, so grouping those together answers a different question entirely.

Answer: A
This question draws on the same list as civics question 69: joining a political party and writing to a newspaper are both examples of civic participation USCIS lists, alongside voting, running for office, and contacting elected officials. Paying taxes, obeying the law, serving on a jury, and registering for the Selective Service are civic duties listed under a separate question about serving one's country, and reciting the Pledge or singing the anthem are patriotic observances rather than active participation in civic life.

Answer: D
Civics question 70 accepts voting, paying taxes, obeying the law, serving in the military, running for office, or working for government as a way Americans serve their country. Refusing to pay taxes one disagrees with, declining jury duty for convenience, and ignoring laws one finds unimportant all describe shirking civic duties rather than serving the country, the opposite of what this question asks for.

Answer: D
Civics question 68 asks how people become U.S. citizens, and USCIS accepts being born in the United States under the 14th Amendment, naturalizing, or deriving citizenship under conditions Congress sets. There is no program that sells citizenship outright for an investment, state National Guard service alone confers no path to citizenship, and a tourist visa does not permit the extended residence or work authorization that citizenship eventually requires.

Answer: D
Civics question 66 asks what the Pledge of Allegiance shows loyalty to, and USCIS accepts the United States or the flag, since the Pledge's words commit the speaker to the nation and the republic it represents. The Pledge names no individual president, since loyalty to the country is meant to outlast any single officeholder; it makes no reference to a particular state; and it says nothing about any political party, since the flag represents the whole nation rather than one party within it.

Answer: A
Civics question 71 asks why paying federal taxes matters, and USCIS accepts that it is required by law, that it is required by the Constitution's 16th Amendment, that it funds the federal government, or that it is a civic duty. Federal income tax is legally mandatory rather than voluntary, and skipping it carries real penalties; the requirement applies equally to citizens born in the United States and those who naturalized; and federal tax revenue funds the federal government's own operations, not state governments, which raise their own separate revenue.

Answer: A
Civics question 122 asks why the flag has fifty stars, and USCIS's answer is that there is one star for each of the fifty states. Colonial America had no uniform system of fifty counties tied to the flag's design, the fifty-star flag was adopted in 1960 with no connection to any fifty-year anniversary of 1776, and the Cabinet has never had fifty members, so none of these three explains the star count.

Answer: A
Civics question 123 asks for the name of the national anthem, which is The Star-Spangled Banner, adopted by Congress in 1931. America the Beautiful, God Bless America, and My Country, 'Tis of Thee are all beloved patriotic songs, but none of them holds the official status of national anthem that The Star-Spangled Banner does.

Answer: B
Civics question 121 asks why the flag has thirteen stripes, and USCIS's answer is that they represent the thirteen original colonies. The United Nations was founded in 1945 with fifty-one original members, not thirteen; only eleven years, not thirteen, separate 1776 from the Constitution's 1787 drafting; and fifty-six delegates, not thirteen, signed the Declaration of Independence.

Answer: A
Civics question 120 asks where the Statue of Liberty is located, and USCIS accepts New York Harbor or Liberty Island, with New Jersey, near New York City, and the Hudson River also accepted. Boston Harbor is instead associated with the 1773 Boston Tea Party, the Chesapeake Bay lies near Washington, D.C. and Baltimore rather than the statue, and San Francisco Bay is on the opposite coast entirely.

Answer: B
Civics question 124 asks what 'E Pluribus Unum' means, and USCIS accepts out of many, one, or we all become one, reflecting the many states or colonies united as a single nation. 'In God We Trust' is a different, later motto Congress adopted in 1956, 'united we stand, divided we fall' is a popular saying rather than a translation of the Latin phrase, and 'liberty and justice for all' comes from the Pledge of Allegiance rather than from 'E Pluribus Unum.'

Answer: A
Civics question 119 asks for the capital of the United States, which is Washington, D.C., established as the permanent seat of government in 1800. New York City served as capital only briefly in the 1780s, Philadelphia hosted the government for periods before 1800, and Boston, while central to the Revolution, was never the seat of the federal government, so none of the three is the current capital.

Answer: C
Civics question 125 asks what Independence Day is, and USCIS accepts that it is a holiday celebrating U.S. independence from Britain, or the country's birthday. It does not mark the Constitution's ratification, which took effect years later in 1788; honoring veterans describes Veterans Day rather than Independence Day; and the Civil War's end is separately commemorated through holidays such as Juneteenth, not Independence Day.

Answer: D
Civics question 127 asks what Memorial Day is, and USCIS's answer is that it honors soldiers who died in military service. Honoring living service members describes Armed Forces Day rather than Memorial Day, Memorial Day carries no connection to the school calendar, and the Declaration's signing is what Independence Day commemorates, not Memorial Day.

Answer: D
Civics question 126 asks for three national U.S. holidays, and USCIS lists eleven, including New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Tax Day, Election Day, and Groundhog Day are widely observed dates but not federal holidays on USCIS's list, the same is true of Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Valentine's Day, and Earth Day, Flag Day, and Arbor Day are also observances rather than the federal holidays this question asks for.

Answer: B
Civics question 128 asks what Veterans Day is, and USCIS accepts that it honors people in the U.S. military or people who have served in the U.S. military, living and deceased alike. Honoring only those who died in combat describes Memorial Day rather than Veterans Day, Veterans Day falls on November 11 to mark the World War I armistice rather than V-E Day, and it honors military veterans specifically rather than first responders such as police and firefighters.

Answer: A
This question draws on the same list as civics question 126: Presidents Day, Juneteenth, and Columbus Day are three of the eleven national holidays USCIS lists, alongside New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving. Tax Day, Election Day, Groundhog Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, Earth Day, Flag Day, and Arbor Day are all widely observed dates, but none of them appears on USCIS's list of national holidays.