How the English test works
The English test is part of your naturalization interview and has three parts: speaking, reading and writing. It's the same whether you take the 2025 or the 2008 civics test. The rules below summarize the USCIS Scoring Guidelines for the U.S. Naturalization Test.
Reading
The officer shows you up to three sentences, and you read them out loud one at a time. You pass as soon as you read one correctly. The reading sentences are questions, like "Who was the first President?", but you only have to read them, not answer them. USCIS says applicants will not fail because of their accent.
Writing
The officer reads a sentence out loud, and you write it down. You get up to three sentences and pass when you write one so the officer can read it. Two rules matter most:
- Don't abbreviate. Write "United States," not "US." Write each word in full. (The list spells "Washington, D.C." that way, so write it as shown.)
- Small mistakes are OK. Spelling, capitalization and punctuation errors won't fail you unless they change what the sentence means.
Writing sentences are usually short statements that answer the reading questions, for example "Washington was the first President." Numbers on the list can be written as words or digits: "fifty" or "50," "one hundred" or "100."
Speaking
There is no separate speaking test. The officer judges your spoken English from the whole interview, mainly from your answers to questions about your Form N-400. If you don't understand a question, it's fine to ask the officer to repeat it or say it another way. Officers are required to repeat and rephrase questions. USCIS also states that you won't be asked to define words or phrases from the N-400.
How to practice
- Learn the word lists first. There are fewer than 100 words across both lists. Tap each one above to hear how it's pronounced.
- Practice holidays and months together. Seven of the writing words are months, and each one goes with a holiday on the list: Presidents' Day in February, Memorial Day in May, Flag Day in June, Independence Day in July, Labor Day in September, Columbus Day in October and Thanksgiving in November.
- Write by hand. Typing here is quick for checking, but on the real test you write the sentence yourself. Practice writing some sentences by hand too.
- Read slowly and clearly. Speed doesn't matter. Pausing is fine, and you won't lose points for your accent.
The vocabulary lists are from USCIS (reading, writing; public domain). USCIS does not publish the actual test sentences. The practice sentences on this page were written by CitizenshipBound using only words from the official lists, so they are similar in style to the real test but not copies of it.