95 questions
Each test holds the same questions every time, so you can take them in any order.
This theme is what the UK asks of the people who live in it, and it is the one theme that also covers the test and the application you are sitting it for. A large part of it comes from the first chapter of the handbook, the chapter people most often skip, and the handbook is explicit that real test questions can be drawn from it.
Values and duties. The fundamental principles of British life, the responsibilities someone takes on when they apply to settle here, what the UK offers its residents in return, and the pledge and the promise of loyalty made at a citizenship ceremony.
The test and the application. How many questions there are, which languages it can be sat in, where it can be taken and how a place is booked, what to bring on the day, which visa routes need a pass, and the level of English required alongside it.
Money and work. Income tax, Pay As You Earn, self assessment and the department that collects it, then National Insurance, what the contributions pay for, what happens if they fall short, and what the number is for.
Driving. The minimum ages, the two parts of the theory test, when a vehicle needs an MOT, how long a licence lasts after 70, the plate a new driver shows in Northern Ireland, and driving here on a licence issued abroad.
Your part in the community. Volunteering, jury service, giving blood, donating an organ, recycling, neighbours, helping at a school, and volunteering with the police.
More often than not, a number or a flat rule. Ages, thresholds, how many of something. They are easier learnt as one set, because the questions rarely give you anything to reason from.
The second group asks which item belongs on a list. Two questions in the theme turn that round and ask which item is not on the list, and both of them are in the values and principles group, so read the question twice before you read the options.
Two lists, and both of them have five items. The fundamental principles of British life are one list. The responsibilities of someone seeking to settle here are another. Questions ask for the count of each and for what is on each, so keep them apart.
The ages cluster tightly. A moped at 16, and the National Insurance number arriving shortly before that birthday. A car at 17. A jury, a pub and a betting shop at 18. 70 is where a licence starts being renewed more often, and 75 is the free TV licence. A question gives you one of these and the wrong answers are usually the others.
Tax and National Insurance are two different things. Income tax goes to HM Revenue and Customs, taken from pay under Pay As You Earn or declared by the self employed. National Insurance is a separate contribution paying for state benefits and services, and the number exists so that what you pay is recorded against you.
Civil or criminal. Money owed to you, wages included, is a civil matter. That is the example the handbook gives.
The bodies and websites in the application questions no longer exist. Two questions mark the UK Border Agency as the right answer. It closed in 2013 and the work is now done by UK Visas and Immigration, with the forms and fees on gov.uk. Another marks Tier 1 and Tier 2 visas, categories that ended on 1 January 2021 in favour of a points based system. A third puts the number of test centres at about 60, where gov.uk lists just over 30 today. All three are still the marked answers, so answer the book, and use gov.uk for anything you actually have to do.
The religion figures come from a survey taken in 2009. Five questions in this theme key their answers to it, with about seven in ten people describing themselves as Christian. The 2021 Census for England and Wales found 46.2 per cent Christian and 37.2 per cent with no religion at all. If those older figures feel wrong to you, that is because you are reading the country correctly and the question is not asking about the country. It is asking about the survey.
Two of the age rules have moved since the book was printed. The free TV licence for people aged 75 and over has been limited to those receiving Pension Credit since August 2020. Jury service is keyed at 18 to 70, and England and Wales raised the upper age to 75 in 2016, with no upper limit at all in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Smaller ones follow the same pattern. Twitter was renamed X in 2023, the National Citizen Service closed in 2025, and an EU licence can no longer simply be used here indefinitely. When any of these come up in practice, a Worth knowing note appears beside the answer with the current fact, so you learn the marked answer and the real one together.
One change is worth knowing for your own sake rather than for the test. The English requirement for settling that sits alongside the test is at B1 today. On many settlement routes it rises to B2 for applications made on or after 26 March 2027, under the Immigration Rules. Citizenship is not part of that change and still asks for B1. Check gov.uk for the rule that applies to your route on the date you apply.
Pick this one if the first chapter of the handbook is unfamiliar, because no other theme covers as much of it. It also rewards a second pass close to your test date, being mostly numbers. It overlaps with Law, Courts and the Police and with Government, Parliament and Politics, so the time is not spent only here.