A REAL citizenship test

Newsweek is out with a story that 38% of Americans can’t pass a simple citizenship test. Intrigued, I hurried to their site to take the test myself which I naturally passed with ease. However, I am no “ordinary” citizen seeing as how I am clearly much smarter and better looking than the average American, not to mention the fact that I was born with many unfair advantages in life what with my loving two parent stable home life, and my whiteness. So I feel compelled to come to the defense of my less civic-minded neighbors by offering the suggestion that the citizenship test itself is unfair.

Seriously, does it really matter how many years we elect senators to serve? I fail to see the importance of knowing how many justices sit on the Supreme Court, and who cares if 88% of my fellow Americans can’t name a single author of the Federalist Papers? I mean the fact that 74% of us didn’t know that the Speaker of the House is next in line to the Presidency if both the President and the Vice-President pass away isn’t nearly as important as the fact that over half of us actually knew that Joe Biden IS the Vice-President. I say we need to redesign the test to bring it into the 21st century. Isn’t the whole point of these tests to insure that there is an overriding national identity to which we can all lay claim? Isn’t the purpose of citizenship to equip us to all rally around shared knowledge of what it means to be an American? Well then…I submit the following ten questions as a starting point for a new citizenship test which will test more accurately our shared awareness.

1. Name two characters from the hit reality TV show,Jersey Shore.

2. Which Kardashian sister is “the fat one”?

3. What mythical substance does Charlie Sheen have coursing through his veins?

4. Which NFL quarterback is least likely to get a Christmas card from PETA?

5. Barack Obama was born in…A. Hawaii
B. Kenya
C. Washington,DC
D. a manger because there was no room in the inn
6. What menacing world power can Sarah Palin see from her kitchen window?

7. Who of the following is most famous for their appearance in a sex video?

A. Kim Kardashian
B. Paris Hilton
C. Pamela Anderson
D. All of the above

8. What famous NFL quaterback did Jessica Simpson date?

9. Connect the famous person with their famous preferred treatment

Nancy Pelosi tanning bed
John Boehner botox
Donald Trump lipo-suction
Joan Rivers hair-spray

10. What brand of cigarettes does Charlie Sheen chain smoke?


It is my opinion that the average American would pass this test with flying colors and we could forever put to bed this notion that we Americans have no common culture, nothing that unites us. We might not know what the first ten amendments to the constitution are called but on the REAL pressing issues of our time we are fully up to speed.