Could you stay with Life in the UK?

As I mentioned in my last post, it's been nearly 5 years since we moved to the U.K. This means that we are now eligible for permanent residency. To get this, you need to pay a big heap of money (like a couple of thousand pounds) and you need to pass a 24 question test entitled, "Life in the UK". This is a variety of questions about Britain's history, demographics, holidays, politics and etc. It's only 24 questions, but there's about 200 questions you could be asked. We actually had to study to pass this, it wasn't simple. But neither was it particularly relevant or useful. Why do I need to know the biggest immigrant groups to the UK during the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s?

Most information I needed to know for the Life in the UK test will not be very useful for anything but the odd pub quiz, but some information would have been useful if they had provided it when we moved here. Then I could have known how things worked straightaway rather than spending five years figuring it out for myself! Five years on, they bother to tell me in the study material how council taxes work. Trust me, the council found us and made sure we understood (i.e. paid) long before this!! One would think they would equip new immigrants to the UK far better for integration by giving them all this information at the start of their move to the country, rather than after several years of establishment. Talk about missing the boat - weak immigration pun intended.

So if you are a British citizen and want to see if you truly deserve citizenship, try taking this little test here. Life in the UK Sample Test. Good luck with that. Let me know if I should call round to take back your passport tomorrow.