Confessions of an immigrant: Knowledge of Life in the UK

So I finally took the plunge, and naturalised as a British citizen, having lived here for twenty-five of the twenty-seven years of my life. Naturally, I’m one of those dastardly hordes of Swiss immigrants who’s come over here to deprive British workers of British jobs for British history lecturers. What should have been an affirmatory and celebratory experience was instead a combination of bureaucratic nightmare and Pythonesque farce.

To begin with, there was the dreaded form. The supplementary notes alone were some 151 pages. Past landlords had to be called up for references to prove that I had actually once been a tenant, and former employers pestered for letters to confirm that I was indeed clocking in at 9am every day, and not sneakily commuting back to Monte Carlo every night. Self-contradictory instructions were followed, and £851 parted with when handing in the form.

(In an aside, I first filled out the form in 2007, when the fee was £250. I was on a low wage then, and could barely afford the fee, until overnight the Home Office changed the fee to £700 without any explanation, and the application process did not materially change. I deferred handing it in, and ended up waiting another five years until I could afford it.)

The most intellectually demeaning part of the whole experience was the Knowledge of Life in the UK test, which I can only guess has been compiled by someone who has never visited the UK. I was made to sit the test because the Home Office does not recognise equivalent qualifications, and so my having been entirely schooled in Britain, holding the highest English Language GCSE mark in the country, four A-grade AS Levels (including one in English), three A-grade A Levels (including one in English), a Distinction in my English AEA Level, and two degrees in British History from the Universities of Cambridge and London, were not enough. Instead, I had to roll up to a Home Office test centre on a soggy Thursday morning and sit the test (current cost £50).

Yet despite the Home Office’s obsession with language qualifications, each official I have come into personal contact with in this process – the test staff, the council official who checked my form, the Home Office call centre staff, the officers presiding over my naturalisation ceremony – all demonstrated a striking difficulty in structuring a grammatical English sentence, making the whole exercise descend into farce. I remember being asked, ‘Is you here for the English test?’ and ‘Was you able to pass an English test, and can you talk proper?’ without a trace of irony.

The test takes the form of 20 multiple-choice questions, which one can only revise for by buying the official Life in the UK handbook from the Home Office (RRP £9.99) and the accompanying revision guide (RRP £5.99). One cannot simply take the test using common sense, because the Life in the UK book is so riddled with factual errors that if I were to give the correct answers, I would fail the test. I could only pass the test by memorising erroneous material.

From the Life in the UK handbook I learned many new and interesting things. Apparently, Magna Carta was signed in 1316, some 101 years later than is commonly thought, and Hitler invaded Russia in 1942 – which must have come as a shock to those Russians fighting the invading Wehrmacht in the summer of 1941. Being a political historian, I naturally homed in on the fact that every single description of who was allowed to vote at various times in British history was comically wrong. Had it been an essay I was marking for my students, I would have given it a Fail.

On a more sinister level, the test handbook apparently served as one long propaganda piece. Drawn up by the Labour government in 2005, and unrevised since 2007, its subtext seemed clear: Labour governments are good to immigrants, and have a history of loosening restrictions, while Conservative ones are bad and keep tightening restrictions on immigration – and a point was made of highlighting whether it was a Labour or Conservative government responsible for relevant changes of law. In the book’s potted account of the history of immigration in Britain, no mention is made of the Harold Wilson government’s 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act, probably the most racist piece of post-war British legislation, which severed non-white Commonwealth immigration whilst leaving white immigration almost intact. The manual might as well have had a bright red cover and the heading “VOTE LABOUR” atop every page. It therefore comes as no surprise that Theresa May has got round to announcing a revised edition, and I fully expect it to have a comparable “VOTE CONSERVATIVE” subtext.

Finally, the big day came, and I was asked to take my oath at a Citizenship Ceremony in my local town hall. The entire affair could not have been more ludicrous. It began over half an hour late, while we watched a rotating PowerPoint slide show on the ethnic diversity of my London borough, and were introduced to each portfolio holder on the local council’s cabinet; essential grounding for every new citizen, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The ceremony was a mass swearing-in of over 30 new Brits, and it opened to great fanfare with the entrance of the Mayor, fully resplendent in aldermanic garb, and led by a white-gloved elderly gentleman brandishing an impressively-proportioned golden mace. Unfortunately, it was only at the end of their march to the stage that they realised they’d lost the stand for the mace, and an increasingly frenzied search under the tables took place while this poor elderly man looked as though he was about to keel over under the weight of his mace.

The Mayor then gave us a welcoming speech, which turned out to be a verbatim repetition of the slideshow on our London borough which we had been left to study for the last half hour, only in rather broken English, with a few platitudes thrown in.

The ceremony proceeded, as proud new citizens collected their naturalisation certificates. Half-way through the proceedings, pandemonium erupted as everyone realised they’d been given the wrong certificates, and 30 newly-sworn-in Brits began manically shuffling around pieces of paper like schoolchildren exchanging prized bubblegum cards.

Mindful to show the trendiness of modern Britain, the Superintendant Registrar chaired the proceedings with a style somewhere between Bruce Forsyth and Les Dennis, complete with calls to the stage of, “And if you’ll give them a warm hand, my next contestant is…” By this stage I didn’t think the event could get any closer to a bad Saturday night light entertainment programme, but I was wrong, for we all had to stand to a recording of the national anthem being played on a Wurlitzer organ – a remarkable instrument that can transform even the most solemn piece into musak.

Finally, we were presented with a commemorative gift, so we could all go home remembering our big day: a glass paperweight with the seal of my London borough, and the words “CITIZENSHIP CEREMONY”. I had at last achieved my long-held dream to be a citizen of the country that is my home; but with that cheap and nasty paperweight they somehow managed to make the whole thing feel like a consolation prize.

Source:-
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/07/02/confessions-of-an-immigrant-knowledge-of-life-in-the-uk

From our personal experience, I can say that my wife did not read the whole book.
She read only those chapters that were required for the test.
Let me also say that she took time out to practise the test on CD's and on the internet.
This was solely "rote learning" and she continued until she could remember all the correct answers in the tests (the multiple choice format is a great help in rote learning)

When she took her test she was congratulated by the staff at the college as she only got one question wrong.

She still can recall a lot of the stuff she learned, but she is the first to admit she did what was needed, and that was to pass the test. Nothing to do with learing about Life in UK or with how to integrate better.

Just my experience.

As a slight aside to this my wife took the living in the uk test last month and unfortunatly failed. This is after using the offical book, but also the "Which" Cd that is recommended. She was regularly geting 22-24 correct answers using this CD (she used this alot more than just keep reading the book) but when it came to the test she said she only recognised about half the questions so the others where a guess. After talking to one of the officals at the test centre this is apparenty a fairly common thing as these external study aids aren't worded the same as the offical tests and study aids but also the bloke said that "Which" couldn't possibily know all the questions and how they where worded.

Needless to say we where dissappointed especailly as she'd done so well in practice. Anyway time to book another test for August and have now got her all the offical govt. publications and thrown the "Which" cd out.

My wife is starting to look at the Life in the UK test material. She has approximately just over a year till her Spouse visa expires. We have all the books. Go them on ebay.

Tex became a British Citizen in June, '12 and now has a British Passport.
A friend said Tom must be proud and happy... Tex replied "NO the poor Paddy had to sleep with a Brit last night" :violin: Honest injun ;-)

I looked at the questions in a "test paper" for Life in UK.
There was a question "How many MP's in the Welsh Parliament" ???
Think my answer would have failed me.!

My ANSWER : "Who gives a rats arse". :ulster:

Tom

There's a lot of talk about the introduction of a new test at some point.
The book has been completely revamped and has a notional publish date sometime in October.

There's no more information about welfare benefits and how to claim. Allegedly

Thanks Peter.

There's also no information on any transitional arrangements. But when something similar happened before they allowed candidates to choose to a test based on the book version they had actually studied.
Hopefully your wife will have the same opportunity.

Anyway I wish her good luck. I'm sure you already know that she can take the test any number of times, just that she has a pass certificate before ILR application. Better to take the test sooner than later.

Yes. It seems to be a bit grey and fuzzy just now. Hopefully they will be flexible. I called into Immigration a few weeks back and they seemed unsure themselves at the moment.

yes it is silly

My advise would be not to leave it too late,.. my wife went for her test 5 weeks from her Spouse visa expiry date, very confident after studying for weeks on end. She failed ! There was panic when she got a new date that was 1 week after her expiry so they squeezed her in the following week,....never seen my poor wife studying so hard for the following 6 days. She passed.
I was born here 52 years ago,...and I found the answers very difficult to answer.

Jonny

You and me both.

Yes. Agreed. I need to crack the whip a little.

I am just lucky I have an ESOL with citizenship already so when I was asked for the Life in UK test they said I don't need it anymore! some people I know failed the test more than 5 times! it must be that difficult I guessed!

I cannot begin to say how angry this thread makes me.

A new one is being planned as well as a increased level for the English Language test (B1)
I understand October 2013

My wife Chel took the test and passed about a year ago, first time.
I was amazed when she came out of the test centre and said it was so short.
Apparently she thought she would be sitting all of the tests in the book and not just one.
Obviously, she had been memorising everything. She sometimes corrects me about facts of my own country that I don't know about.
She doesn't show me up too much, but she could!
I take my hat off to her.

One question in Tex's test was "How many MP's sit in the Welsh Parliment.?

My answer would have failed me - for sure.!

Tom