US citizenship test study guide

Before you start: three things to settle

1. Which version you take. Filed Form N-400 on or after 20 October 2025? You take the 2025 version: 128 questions, 20 asked, 12 to pass. Before that date? The 2008 version: 100 questions, 10 asked, 6 to pass. Studying the wrong list is the most expensive mistake available.
2. Whether you qualify for an exemption. 65 or older with 20 years as an LPR means you study only 20 starred questions. 50/20 or 55/15 means you can take the interview in your own language with an interpreter.
3. Your interview date, if you have one. It tells you how much to compress.

Week 1 — baseline and American Government

Day 1: take a cold mock test. Do not study first. It will feel bad and that is the point — the questions you miss are your actual syllabus, and a score you did not earn tells you nothing.

Days 2–7: American Government only. This is 72 of the 128 questions, or 57 of the 100 — more than half the test either way. Twenty focused minutes a day beats two hours on a Sunday.

Week 2 — history and the rest of the bank

American History is the second-biggest section: the colonial period and independence, the 1800s, and recent history. It rewards a timeline rather than flashcards — if you can place the Revolution, the Constitution, the Civil War, the two World Wars, the Cold War and the civil rights movement in order, a lot of individual questions become obvious.

Then finish the smaller sections. On the 2025 version that is Symbols and Holidays (ten questions, almost free marks). On the 2008 version it is Integrated Civics, including the Geography questions that the 2025 version dropped.

Week 3 — produce, do not recognise

This is the week that separates people who pass from people who are surprised. Switch off multiple choice and use flashcards: read the question, say the answer out loud, then reveal.

Recognition and recall are different skills. Picking "Twenty-seven (27)" out of four options is easy; producing it in silence when an officer asks how many amendments the Constitution has is a different task. Practise the one you will actually be tested on.

Study the whole bank on your phone

All 128 questions of the 2025 version and all 100 of the 2008 version, offline, with mastery tracking per category and study in your own language. Free on iPhone and Android.

Week 4 — the moving parts

Now handle the questions that no study list can answer for you.

Where you live: your governor, your state capital, one of your state's two US senators, and your US representative. Look them up for your own address and write them down.

Who currently holds office: the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House and the Chief Justice of the United States. Check these on the official USCIS test updates page in the week before your interview and answer with whoever is serving that day.

Spend the rest of the week on full mock tests until you are clearing the pass mark comfortably every time, and rehearsing out loud with another person.

Memory anchors that collapse the bank

The bank is more repetitive than its size suggests. A handful of anchors answer a disproportionate number of questions:

• The President signs bills, vetoes bills, is Commander in Chief, appoints federal judges, and is replaced by the Vice President.
• Congress writes laws, declares war and makes the federal budget. Senate: 100 members, 6-year terms, two per state, elected by citizens of the state. House: 435 voting members, 2-year terms, elected by citizens of a district, more members for bigger states.
• The Civil War answers the war between North and South and the war that ended slavery.
• "To stop the spread of communism" answers both Korea and Vietnam.
• The people: Jefferson wrote the Declaration; Madison is Father of the Constitution; Washington is Father of Our Country; Lincoln freed the slaves and led the country through the Civil War; Franklin Roosevelt was president during the Great Depression and World War II.
• The numbers: 27 amendments, 100 senators, 435 representatives, 9 Supreme Court seats, 13 stripes for 13 colonies, 50 stars for 50 states, 1787 for the Constitution, 4 July 1776 for the Declaration.

The readiness checklist

• I know which version I take and I have only been studying that one.
• I have cleared the pass mark on three consecutive mock tests.
• I can answer in flashcard mode without options on screen.
• I have said the answers out loud to another person.
• I know my governor, state capital, both senators and my representative.
• I have checked the four current-officials answers in the last two weeks.
• I have reread my own N-400 and can speak to anything that changed.
• I have practised reading a sentence aloud and writing a dictated sentence.

The iPhone app is built for this plan: category quizzes for weeks 1 and 2, flashcards for week 3, per-question mastery tracking so you can see what is still weak, and a daily challenge that makes the twenty-minutes-a-day habit stick. It also runs entirely offline and can display every question in your own language alongside the English.