U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced changes to the history and civic portion of the test for naturalization, effective for cases filed December 1 and onward (cases already on file before that date will still need to pass the former version of the test, most recently updated in 2008). The changes include additional questions as well as alterations to existing questions.

Many existing questions have been made more complex, and 28 additional questions have been added to the existing 100 questions some of which contain more abstract concepts – changes sure to be difficult for those with less than perfect English proficiency, although the English portion of the test has not itself changed.

There is some hope and expectation that the incoming Biden administration will withdraw the changes and revert to the old version of the test, which was widely agreed to do a more than adequate job of testing knowledge of US history and civics.