why do i need to know this for settlement
you can't be fucking serious
who gives a fuck
who. gives. a. fuck.

@whitequark these feel like slightly obscure pub quiz questions

maybe that's the real settlement process: going to a traditional british pub quiz

@6a62 its only funny if your future doesn't entirely hinge on it
@whitequark
When I took this 15 years ago, it was mostly demographics questions like what percentage of the UK population were different world religions etc, plus details of rights and benefits of citizenship.
@6a62
@spacehobo @6a62 oh, they really ramped up the jingoism then

@whitequark @6a62 Yeah, that was one thing David Cameron was really proud of.

Incidentally, as I came from the US and Mrs. Hobo's co-worker came from India, we didn't have to take an English exam but he did. Never mind that The US at that time HAD NO NATIONAL LANGUAGE and India's national language is ENGLISH due to having been A BRITISH COLONY IN LIVING MEMORY. He described the interviews like this:

THEM: "Where did you learn English?"

HIM: "Uh, just growing up?"

"No, but in India, where did you take English courses?"

"I didn't? We spoke English?"

"We don't see you using English enough in your profession so you'll need to take a series of exams."

"Do you mean my profession as English copywriter?"

So yeah, you don't have to look far to find rampant racism in the system. The process to collect a first-time UK passport involves these weird grilling questions about your identity that ask you to do things like tell the colour of bricks on your building. I was lucky I caught the trap there, as they'd just pressure-washed the brown off ours to reveal the yellow bricks below and I could tell that the interviewer had gone off an older google street view image (back when that was brand new).

@spacehobo @6a62 holy fucking shit

"We don't see you using English enough in your profession so you'll need to take a series of exams."

"Do you mean my profession as English copywriter?"

@spacehobo @6a62 what absolute ghouls
@whitequark @spacehobo @6a62 reading these questions genuinely pissed me off. They're exactly like the literacy tests some states in the US used to give, and for exactly the same bullshit racist reasons.
@aud @spacehobo @6a62 I've really struggled with studying them not because I have difficulty memorizing large amounts of trivia (I'm a very successful programmer, this is probably the one thing I do best) but because the questions are such brazen, transparent, bold racism
@whitequark @spacehobo @6a62 even reading through what you posted just now, I can just feel myself getting angry about it. I can't imagine having to study through the rage.
Petition: Require all UK MPs and Ministers to take and pass the Citizenship Test

Suspend any MP who fail the test within 6 months of becoming an MP until they successfully pass. Ministers should be required to have passed before taking any role.

Petitions - UK Government and Parliament