When we use the term UK, we’re actually using an abbreviation. UK is short for United Kingdom, which in itself is short for, the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

When we talk about Great Britain we’re actually just talking about a geographic feature – and not a political country. Great Britain is the large island made up of England, Scotland and Wales – this excludes all the islands like the Isle of Wight and many other islands around the coastline.

However, the ambiguity creeps in when you refer to just use the word Britain. This could be a political or geographic reference. Politically it refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Or geographically it could refer to the island of Great Britain.

Some people will refer to the UK as Great Britain, but really that’s a bit sloppy. It’s like referring to North America when you really mean the USA. Even worse still some people refer to the Scottish as English.

However it’s always straightforward either. For example, someone born in Northern Ireland has the right to identify themselves as either Irish, British or both. This is a provision that was made in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But then Northern Ireland politics has always been complicated.

There’s a tiny mention about these different regions in the British citizenship test and is something that should probably be expanded upon.

Diagram Credit: Wikipedia

There’s been lots of discussion on blogs and Twitter this week about the citizenship test. Many British born citizens have reported how they’ve failed the test and questioned the test’s usefulness. After all, if this is a test about British life then surely anyone born in the UK should instinctively be able to pass with flying colours.

Some people have suggested that MPs probably wouldn’t be able to pass the test. Here is what happened when journalist Daniel Adam quizzed Mike Gapes (Labour MP for Ilford South) on his knowledge:

The conditions were not exactly the same as those stipulated by the Home Office. In my home-made test, Gapes was required to answer only 10 questions instead of 20. These were read out to him, and he could take as long as he wanted to give his answer. But it was all over in five minutes. At the end of it, with a great big smile on his face, Gapes said ‘I have failed, haven’t I?’ His instincts (if not his answers) were right.

With only half the questions answered correctly, Mike Gapes MP, the honourable member for Redbridge, had failed the test. If his score-rate remained as low as that in a real test, and if he were an incomer to Britain, he would have been denied citizenship on grounds, presumably, of insufficient engagement with British society. Not good for someone who is meant to represent it.

It would be interesting to get test results from other MPs. So if you plan to meet with your MP in the coming weeks, take a copy of our test and see report back their score.

According to our survey, only one in seven Brits are able to pass the government’s British citizenship test. The mock test was completed by 11,118 British people – only 1,585, or 14 per cent, achieved a pass score.

Earlier this week, the government proposed to increase the difficulty of the test and add extra topics on history and politics. However should this be happening when so few native Brits are able to pass the test already?

So how do we fix this? The citizenship test should be something that anyone who has lived here is able to pass. Anything but this is making a mockery of the process. If you’ve got a suggestion for a question that every good citizen should know, then share it with us by adding a comment to this post.

Update: Corrected the headline to match the stats. Tip of the hat to Next Left for telling us about this.

Being an immigrant he is particularly fascinated by this country’s identity, including multiculturalism and the ongoing relationship between Britain and immigration, making it an incredibly diverse country that is like no other in Europe or in the world.

For this project he used a large format camera, which is a completely unique working practice in photography: the cameras size contributes to attracting peoples attention, therefore sparking a more intimate visual dialogue between the viewer, photographer and the subject.

He hopes to bring wonder to people who look at it, and think about the country that they live in or their background.

Are names and borders within that space so important to define who we are as people? Is it important to have an identity? Questions that are asked to the viewer are directed to them and the subject selected from the British Citizenship test. Essentially these portraits are of British people by birth who have roots in different countries.

You can see the full set of Dan’s work on our Flickr.

Of course, the test was never intended to be a test of “Britishness”. Its intention is to assess an applicant’s knowledge of life in the United Kingdom and grasp of English (or Welsh or Scottish Gaelic). But the knowledge of the country which they have to demonstrate is not general knowledge. It is drawn from a government-issued handbook, which they have to study in detail. To pass they must correctly answer at least 18 out of 24 multiple-choice questions.

All questions are drawn from the handbook. The handbook covers a range of topics on life in this country, in particular, demographics, customs, traditions, government, employment and aspects of everyday life. Although the official questions set by the government are not available for public view and are a closely guarded secret, the questions in this book have been used by hundreds of thousands of people to help them pass the test.

For many people, the test is seen as a pub quiz of random information selected by the government. Some people also argue that many British-born citizens would fail the test. Whatever your view of the test, this website will provide an informative, if not quirky, insight into the route to a new British life that most native Brits would take for granted.

Anyone lucky enough to be born in Britain will never have to worry about taking the citizenship test – but if you did, would you pass it?