Things You'll Need:
- official manual, "Look at Canada"
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Step 1
A Look at Canada - official manual for the Canadian citizenship testObtain a copy of "Look at Canada", the official manual, distributed by Citizenship Canada. Normally, when you apply for citizenship, when CIC receives your documents, they send you a Receipt and they include the manual - which is very thoughtful, but if you start memorizing stuff right away, chances are you will forget everything by the time they actually invite you to the test. If for some reason you don't have the manual, you can download it for free, in PDF format, and print it out at home or some place where you can use a printer, for example at Kinko's.
The manual can be downloaded directly from Citizenship Canada's website: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/look.pdf. -
Step 2
If you don't have time to read, you can listen to the manual in its audio version - handy when you drive to work, for example. You can use it on a CD or on your iPod. The audio version is available free of charge from this website: www.testcanada.com/prepare.
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Step 3
Once you read (or listened to) the manual, a good way to practice is by using Practice Questions or Online Quizzes. There are plenty of ways to get a hold of sample questions. There are good commercial options, such as www.InterExam.com or www.CitiTest.com, which include all kinds of test simulations, but a good start would be to test yourself on a free website, such as www.canadiancitizenshiptest.net.
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Step 4
Remember that there is ONE thing that is not included in the official manual, but still asked during the test! This is where many people fail. These are the so-called "Questions About Your Region". You are supposed to know:
1. The capital city of the province or territory in which you live.
2. Three natural resources important to your region's economy today.
3. Your city councillor, alderperson, reeve or regional councillor.
4. The name of your mayor.
5. The name of your provincial representative (member of the Legislative Assembly, member of the provincial Parliament, member of the National Assembly or member of the House of Assembly).
6. The name of the premier of your province or territory.
7. The political party in power in your province or territory.
8. The name of the leader of the opposition in your province.
9. The name of your lieutenant governor or commissioner.
All this info is not hard to find using Wikipedia. If you regularly read your local newspapers, you may know all these things already. -
Step 5
Final note, extremely important: the test contains Mandatory Questions. These questions MUST be answered correctly, or you fail. Even if ALL your other questions were answered correctly, if you fail ONE mandatory question, you fail. Mandatory questions are about:
1. the right to vote in elections in Canada.
2. the right to run for elected office in Canada.
3. voting procedures and how to register yourself as a voter.
Make sure you read the chapter about Elections enough times to memorize it. If you forget something from the Chapter about History, no big deal: mistakes are allowed. But questions about Voting are vital, so pay special attention to that. -
Step 6
On the day of the test, don't forget to bring the Notice to Appear with you; you will also need to bring your ID (the exact list will be on your Notice). Right before the test, your passport may be screened for stamps (in case you spent a lot of time abroad during the last 3 years, stamps will usually show that, so you may be asked to explain). You will be given pencils, erasers and everything else you may need. You will receive results in the mail, two weeks later (sometimes less, sometimes more). The test may seem easy, but lots of people fail every year, so once again, prepare early! Good Luck!
Comments
finneganolsen said
on 7/27/2009 I passed my test a couple of years ago and I totally agree - prepare early...there's quite a bunch of info to memorize, dates, names etc. Great article!