DETROIT, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- The test for U.S. citizenship is being overhauled to make it more relevant.
The new test will rely more on immigrants' knowledge of useful data than textbook trivia, the Detroit News reported.
The government has decided that there are questions that better test an immigrant's qualifications as a U.S. citizen than knowing the year the Constitution was written.
More than 90 percent of applicants for citizenship who take the oral civics test pass it. But federal officials and advocates for immigrants still believe the test examines an area of knowledge that that is too narrow, the newspaper said.
Even some groups advocating stricter immigration standards, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, say that the citizenship test needs to be reworked.
"If you look at the test that is currently being given citizens, it really doesn't evaluate anyone's knowledge of American ideals or the values in our Constitution," said Ira Mehlman, media director for FAIR.
