The Australian citizenship test

Sit for your own Australian citizenship test here. These sample questions will give you an idea of whether you’d make a good Australian or not. You need 60% to pass. I got 19/20. I missed one point because I got the number of Australian states wrong. Boo.

Some questions of particular interest – “Australia’s values are based on the …”, to which the correct answer is “The Judeo-Christian tradition”. I’m an atheist and I happen to think that I make quite a good Australian. Another good one is “Australia’s political system is a …”. The options include “dictatorship”, “socialist state” and “monarchy”. My favourite was “which animals are on the Australian Coat of Arms?”, to which one of the incorrect options was “Lion and unicorn”. I wonder how many people fell for that one.

6 thoughts on “The Australian citizenship test”

  1. The Head of State question would have also been controversial, since many monarchists consider the Governor-General to be Head of State.

    But in any case, it seems that the questions were, at least in part, a fabrication of a News Ltd journalist (link):

    Mr Andrews and Prime Minister John Howard dismissed a newspaper report which listed 20 questions which could be in the quiz.

    “[T]hose questions in the paper this morning are not ours.”

  2. Aggie, I’m not entirely convinced about Australia being unique in eating the animals on its coat of arms, though it might be true. Eritrea has a camel, Bolivia has a llama and Peru has a vicuna. I think it’s illegal to eat the latter two but it still happens.

    Also, the British coat of arms has a lion and a unicorn on it, as does the Canadian one, so that option isn’t as outlandish as it looks at first.

  3. whats with question 16?
    what does ANZAC day represent? it says the answer is the landing at gallipoli. that is what is started out to be but these days it is to honour all of our fallen in multiple comflicts that have occured and are still occuring around the globe. so the real answer should be that.
    or at least that is what we are being taught at school these days so maybe the goverment disagrees with the education system?

  4. O well, got one wrong… i thought that for question 15 they would have been dishonest about the answer and put D and so i put D knowing that it’s really B, i didnt think they would be honest about it but rather deny it and claim that religion and state are seperate in our country. but it really is B, unfortunately, running a country based on blind faith which come from ignorance rather than what the people of the country really need.

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