# Life in the UK test...



## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

Has anyone written it recently?

If so, just _how_ difficult is it to pass?

I've got the official handbook which I've read through several times (and have done extensive underlining as I went along), the official study guide (which I worked through after finishing reading each chapter) and the official practice test questions and have been scoring 80%+ on the practice tests, but am still scared that I won't pass.

Yeah, I know that I really shouldn't worry too much about it (after all, English is my first language and a lot of the legal concepts are familiar to me having been born and raised in Canada and a fellow expat Canuck [visually impaired] finished and passed in <15 minutes), but it's the technical stuff (breakdown of % of population ethnically and religiously etc) that I'm finding a little hard to remember. I just want to get it over and done with (I write tomorrow morning at 1015h at the Brixton Library).

Thoughts? Suggestions? Helpful advice?

(btw, if you're looking to get the so-called "official" handbook, study guide and practice questions, your best bet is to order through 



 - they have them bundled for £18.67 and it qualifies for free shipping) - or through The Stationery Office (they want £21.25 including standard shipping)... Foyles, Waterstones, and Blackwell will charge you £21.97 (+ p&p if you order online)


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## wife of keelie (Mar 30, 2012)

WestCoastCanadianGirl said:


> Has anyone written it recently?
> 
> If so, just how difficult is it to pass?
> 
> ...


Hi WCCG. I am sitting in the waiting room to write my test. Will report back once I am done and hopefully passed! 

Sent from my iPhone using ExpatForum


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

My partner found it moderately difficult, but passed in September. Here's her take on it...

*Study all the facts - especially the statistics.* In my partner's group, a young Chinese girl (applying for final citizenship before her 18th birthday) ended up in tears. It transpired that (according to my partner) she was barely answering any of them, and when they spoke afterwards, the young girl said that nearly all her questions were based on statistics. My partner also had a lot of statistical questions, but seemingly not as many. 

*The practice questions in the official books are nothing like those on the test itself* so ignore these as a benchmark. It seems there are no 'similar' test questions anywhere. The actual test questions are written more in the style of a Microsoft professional multi-choice exam where ALL the answers stand a chance of being right, rather than in a standard multi-choice where many of the wrong answers are obviously wrong. So read the questions carefully. Some questions also expect more than one answer ticked, and my partner found these more difficult (it's easy enough to spot the most correct answer, but all the others seemed like possible second answers).

That said: my partner is like me - can remember nothing unless it has immediate application!!  However, she did find something very invaluable that helped her enormously: an unofficial test site (free): Life in the UK Test » Free Online Practice Questions » Test 1 » www.theuktest.com (there are 50 tests). *She warns that, again, the questions are nothing like the test questions so if you take these tests, use them just to pack in more facts* rather than use them in place of studying the guide. 

I know there are a lot of posts about the net where people claim that the test is "dead easy and you don't even need to study". I'm not sure how because the test was no walkover. So check each section of the study guide, find useful ways of remembering statistics (example: "% Chinese population in the UK = 0.6" - 6 rhymes with sticks - as in chopsticks. Stupid stuff, but it helped a little).

Very best of luck to you. I'm sure you'll do it. Just ignore the "don't even bother studying" crowd because I believe that's misplaced optimism.

EDITED TO ADD: Good luck, Wife-of-Keelie!


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## nyclon (Apr 3, 2011)

I think if you ask 10 different people you'll get 10 different answers. Everybody's study habits and ability to retain info are different. I read through the material, underlined, made notes and did loads of practice tests. I was definitely over prepared. I thought the test was pretty easy. I was done in 4 minutes but read through the questions again and left after about 9 minutes. I think if you are passing the practice tests you should be fine.


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## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

It's the ethnic makeup and religion statistics that I'm having a hard time remembering, and will likely spend the rest of the evening trying to cram into my head... I'm having a mild freak-out session right now (and I blame my Mom and the whole "Tiger Mom"-esque way in which kids in my ethic community were raised).

I've developed little tricks for remembering obscure facts... i.e. for patron saint days, I was familiar with all of them except for the Welsh guy (St. David), and my Dad's name is David, so that was easy enough to remember and for remembering which day goes with which saint, I just worked south to north and west to east... i.e. St David comes before St. Patrick, and i know that St. Patrick is in March; St. George is 6 days before my English husband's birthday and St. Andrew is near the end of the year.

For some odd reason (and don't ask me why), I associated the number of parliamentary constituencies with the Disney film Lilo and Stitch... there are 646 constituencies in the UK and the character "Stitch" was 'experiment 626'.... perhaps I have too much of an affinity for Hawai'i *shrug.*

I thank my lucky stars that the Canadian government is modeled after the British parliamentary system (except we have an appointed Senate instead of a House of Lords... the Senate has basically the same structure and function), so most of those concepts are very familiar to me (having been taught ad nauseum when I was a schoolgirl), and for the more day-to-day things, I've absorbed information on a good number of concepts (DLA, Job Seeker's Allowance, Benefits, Citizens Advice Bureau, Council Tax, the inner workings of the NHS etc) by just being here and reading posts, so a big shout out to everyone who posts here.

2far... have been doing those tests for a couple of days now and using them and the official practice questions as a way of reinforcing/cramming information into my brain... I figure that if I don't know the answer by this point (i.e. <24 hours to the test), then it's not likely that I'll know it well by test time, and those quizzes are a good gauge as to just how much I _don't_ know.


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

They are, and my partner found, by about the 15th test, that some of the more obscure facts were sticking. And she had the same philosophy about what she didn't know by the 11th hour... We also knew that she could be allowed 6 incorrect answers and still pass, so we hoped that there'd be no more than 6 questions on statistics! 

To be honest, it's no huge calamity if the worst happens because you have a whole two years and it's not massively expensive to retake (unlike a whole visa application at least). Not sure what happened to the threat of UKBA changing the test (there seems to have been no further mention other than a BBC-poke-fun-at article a while back) so now is a good time to take it.


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## alphaola (Dec 3, 2012)

The statistics can be challenging but I doubt the whole 24 questions will be statistics. If you have studied the book and the practice test you will definitely recognise some of the answers. I did mine last month and finished under 10 minutes, I sat at the first computer in the test center and I didn't get any statistics question to my recollection . My advice, 50 to 60% is common sense if you have lived in the Uk for few years and the statistics one , just pay attention to the range of period it occurs.


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## wife of keelie (Mar 30, 2012)

Hi all, 

I passed! There were 10 of us in our group and we all passed. I took the test in Aberdeen. The test itself was a good mix of questions, only a couple of statistics - "what percentage of the population of the UK are under the age of 19" was one of them. WCCG, you will do fine. I am from Canada as well and as you said there are many similarities to how government is run. If you have done practice tests and are averaging 80% you will be fine. I did all the practice tests through Gocitizen.co.uk and it was really helpful. As 2farapart has said the more obscure things do stick with the practice tests. I also want to send my appreciation to this board for all the valuable information that is shared and that I have most certainly gleaned! My best wishes are with you WCCG for your test tomorrow!


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

wife of keelie said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I passed! There were 10 of us in our group and we all passed. I took the test in Aberdeen. The test itself was a good mix of questions, only a couple of statistics - "what percentage of the population of the UK are under the age of 19" was one of them. WCCG, you will do fine. I am from Canada as well and as you said there are many similarities to how government is run. If you have done practice tests and are averaging 80% you will be fine. I did all the practice tests through Gocitizen.co.uk and it was really helpful. As 2farapart has said the more obscure things do stick with the practice tests. I also want to send my appreciation to this board for all the valuable information that is shared and that I have most certainly gleaned! My best wishes are with you WCCG for your test tomorrow!


CONGRATULATIONS! And yes, good luck tomorrow WCCG! You'll be fine. My partner wasn't always hitting 80% and she refused to sit the test until she was passing the majority of those 50 tests.

It was very tempting to have a book-burning ceremony on return from my partner's test (they'd caused a few months of misery and, what with the test about to be rewritten, we figured they'd be of no use and we would be glad to be rid of the things). My partner is like me: studying anything involuntarily is to look at print and not actually read it! 

But no, we still have the books somewhere.


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## BCCanuck (Mar 13, 2012)

I wrote mine on the 4th and passed. Started at 4 pm and finished at 4:05. 

I read chapters 2-6 of the official book through a couple of times and did the practice exams at theuktest(dot)com/life-in-the-uk-test/1

I hope it makes sense, I'm not entrusted to post URLs yet.

I found doing these practice tests in any spare time worked for me. Doing a few a day allowed time for things to sink in. 

In all honesty I was surprised at how easy the actual test was.


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

Over 95% of US, Canadian, Australian and NZ candidates pass first time, but less than 50% of people from Bangladesh, probably to do with English competency.


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## anna91099 (Jan 1, 2013)

Hello! I just passed mine (95% pass rate), so I am very relieved as you can imagine. I was, just like you, quite worried about this damn test, so I did a lot of research, and I found a very good online training program that really help me prepare (and pass) this Life in the UK test. Check out this website. In any case, I wish you good luck!!!


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