77 questions
Each test holds the same questions every time, so you can take them in any order.
This theme is the UK's calendar. The days the country marks, the food it eats, and the customs behind both. Nearly all of it sits in the chapter on modern society, and nearly all of it is a plain fact with a date attached.
The Christian year first. Christmas and Boxing Day, Easter and the two public holidays around it, and Lent with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday at its start.
Then the festivals of the other faiths practised here. Diwali, kept by Hindus and Sikhs, and celebrated famously in Leicester. Hannukah and its menorah. Eid al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan, and Eid ul Adha. Vaisakhi, the Sikh festival of the Khalsa.
Then the days that belong to no faith in particular, from Valentine's Day and April Fool's Day through to Halloween, Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day and Hogmanay, along with the bank holidays that carry no religious meaning at all. The rest is custom rather than calendar. The four patron saints and the four national flowers, the traditional food of each nation, and a few questions on ordinary life such as shop opening hours and pub games.
Almost always a date, a name or a number. Which date Bonfire Night falls on, how many days Lent covers, which flower belongs to which country, what a Yorkshire pudding is made from. There is very little reasoning to do here, which makes the theme quick to revise and easy to let slip, because a fact you nearly know is worth nothing on the day.
Two days in November. Bonfire Night is 5 November and goes back to 1605, when Guy Fawkes and a band of fellow Catholics tried to blow up Parliament and failed. Remembrance Day is 11 November, for those who died in the service of the UK and its allies, marked with a poppy and a two minute silence at eleven in the morning.
Which days move and which do not. Mothering Sunday moves, because it falls three Sundays before Easter and Easter itself lands in March or April. Father's Day does not move. It is the third Sunday in June. Diwali moves around October and November, while Vaisakhi is fixed on 14 April.
Four nations, twice over. Each country has a flower and a saint, and the questions ask for both. England has the rose and St George on 23 April. Wales has the daffodil and St David on 1 March. Scotland has the thistle and St Andrew on 30 November. Northern Ireland has the shamrock and St Patrick on 17 March. Only Scotland and Northern Ireland keep the saint's day as an official holiday.
The extra days. Hogmanay is the Scottish name for 31 December, not a Welsh one, and Scotland takes 2 January as a public holiday as well. Northern Ireland has its own extra public holiday in July, marking the Battle of the Boyne.
One place the book shows its age. The handbook says the yearly Remembrance service at the Cenotaph is attended by the monarch, along with politicians and foreign ambassadors, and that is still the answer to give. The monarch who attends and lays a wreath is now King Charles III, and a Worth knowing note says so beside the answer when the question comes up in practice.
Pick this one if dates are what you keep losing, or close to your test date when you want a block you can finish quickly. A large part of it is shared with Religion and Beliefs, so the two together are less work than they look. If you would rather work a whole chapter, almost all of this sits in chapter 4.