205 questions
Each test holds the same questions every time, so you can take them in any order.
This is the largest theme on the site, and the one where revision pays back most, because the questions turn on names, job titles, years and numbers of members that are quick to learn and easy to confuse. It draws on three parts of the handbook, the chapter on what the UK is, the history chapter and the chapter on government, so practising them together puts the whole picture in one place.
Four blocks, and the first two are much the largest.
Most are plain recall. A year, a name, a job title, a city, or a number of members. A second group asks what somebody actually does, which is a different kind of memory, and covers the Speaker, an ordinary MP, a civil servant, a councillor and a pressure group. These are usually easier than they look, because the handbook gives each role one clear purpose.
Watch the format. Most questions give four options and want one of them, but about one in eleven here does something else. Some ask you to mark a statement true or false, some offer only two options, and a few ask you to select two answers rather than one. A few more, on the constitution, on devolution and on the Chartists, ask which option is NOT true. Read to the end of the question before you look at the options.
Elected and appointed. The Commons is elected, 650 members, and that is why it is the more powerful of the two Houses. The Lords is mostly appointed. Life peers have been nominated by the Prime Minister since 1958 and are formally appointed by the monarch, peers with no party are put forward by an independent Appointments Commission, and hereditary peers lost their automatic seat in 1999. The Prime Minister and nearly every cabinet minister sit in the Commons.
Two Acts of Union. The one with Scotland in 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain, and in Scotland it is called the Treaty of Union. The one with Ireland in 1800 created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Five dates when the vote widened. 1832 and 1867 brought in many more men, 1918 gave the vote to women over 30, 1928 put women and men on the same footing at 21, and 1969 lowered the age to 18. Tie each year to who gained rather than learning the numbers on their own.
The Chartists asked for six things, and votes for women was not one of them. They campaigned in the 1830s and 1840s, were treated as a failure at the time, and most of what they wanted arrived later anyway.
Three devolved bodies, three numbers, three places. The Scottish Parliament has 129 members and sits at Holyrood in Edinburgh. The Welsh Assembly has 60 and sits at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 and sits at Stormont in Belfast. Two dates sit close together here as well, 1997 when powers began to be devolved and 1999 when the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly first existed. Defence is one of the matters Westminster keeps for itself.
The Speaker is neutral but still an MP. The role is tied to no party, and fellow MPs choose the Speaker in a secret ballot.
Answers the world has moved past. This theme has more of these than any other. The handbook still calls the Welsh body the Welsh Assembly, gives it 60 members and a fixed list of subjects it may legislate on. It has been the Senedd, or Welsh Parliament, since 2020, its law making is no longer limited to a list, and at the election of 7 May 2026 it grew to 96 members chosen in a different way. The handbook also describes hereditary peers electing a few of their number to the Lords, and a law that took effect in April 2026 removed the last of them. It says photo identification is needed only in Northern Ireland, and it is now needed much more widely in England. The test still marks the handbook's answers correct, so answer the book. When one of these comes up in practice, a Worth knowing note appears beside the answer with the current fact, so you learn both.
Pick this one if the people and the institutions run together, if devolution is a blur, or if you can name the Prime Ministers but not the years. It is the longest run on the site, so it is worth starting early rather than saving for the week before. It overlaps with Law, Courts and the Police, which comes from the same handbook chapter, and with Equality, Welfare and Social Change, because the campaigns that widened the vote are the same campaigns that won other rights. The Bill of Rights and the settlement that followed it also sit in Kings, Queens and the Monarchy. If the modern chapter as a whole is the problem rather than politics in particular, the wider track is chapter 5.