Citizenship Test and the 'Answer Key'

A staff member here at the Library pointed me to this article in The New York Times about a revamped test immigrants must pass before they may become citizens.

The article talks about the pros and cons of both the old test and the new.? The aim, according to the story, was to get away from ?trivia? and to elicit more substantive answers.

But what is interesting, according to my colleague, is that the Library of Congress Web site is a virtual ?answer key? for the citizenship test.

For instance, the Times links to a sample test of 10 questions. Question 4 states, ?There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them.?? A potential answer can be found here.

Question 6 says, ?The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers.?? Voila!

Or question 7: ?What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803??? Food for thought here and here.

And finally, question 8: ?Who was President during World War I??? The answer can be found here.

Of course, the examples could go on and on.

We often talk about how the purpose of the Library of Congress is to help create a better informed citizenry.? But it hadn?t really occurred to me until now that we can also help create citizens themselves.? (Thanks, Colleen!)

Fox and the Book Hounds

What an exciting day!? With the National Book Festival just hours away, things are really hopping here. I began early this morning trying to meet Dr. Billington at the White House for some joint media interviews with Mrs. Laura Bush, but my entrance was delayed by a ?suspicious package? on 17th Street that turned out …

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Draw Me a Story

I blogged the other day about some new PSAs we have released in conjunction with the Ad Council that highlight lifelong literacy. And now we have added a new, interactive feature to our Literacy.gov Web site. You can go on a ?Storybook Adventure? by following this link and clicking on ?play? once the animated banner …

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The Price of the Copyright Catalog

There has been a bit of a blogospheric brouhaha over what the Library of Congress charges to make its entire Copyright database available (see here and here, for example)?enough so that we have now put out this statement: Regarding Pricing on Bulk Access to Copyright Cataloging Information Recent questions and concerns have arisen regarding the …

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Tonight, Tonight

Tonight the final touches will be put on the Library?s West Side Story exhibition (thus the headline), which opens tomorrow, Sept. 26, and remains on view in the foyer of the Performing Arts Reading Room (room 113 of the Library?s James Madison Memorial Building) through March 29. ?West Side Story: Birth of a Classic? marks …

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Veterans History Project Responds

Some strong but, unfortunately, inaccurate words have been used regarding a small handful of the 50,000+ oral histories of the Veterans History Project (part of the Library?s American Folklife Center). News reporters and others have been using terms like ?fraud? or ?misrepresentation? to describe the incorrect listing of 24 veterans on the VHP Web site …

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