69 questions
Each test holds the same questions every time, so you can take them in any order.
This theme is the Reformation and what came out of it. How the Church of England began, how Scotland went a different way, the conflicts that followed, and which faiths are practised in the UK now. Its questions come from the history chapter and from the chapter on modern society, so practising them together puts the beginning and the present in one place.
The Tudor and Stuart years carry the most weight. Henry VIII needing the Pope's permission to end his first marriage and setting up the Church of England when it was refused, the Reformation itself, the Book of Common Prayer under Edward VI, Elizabeth I requiring everyone to attend their local church, Scotland's Parliament ending papal authority in 1560, the Authorised Version of the Bible, the Divine Right of Kings, the Puritans, the revised Prayer Book Charles I tried to impose on Scotland, and William's defeat of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Before all that, the early Christian centuries. When Christian communities first took root here, St Columba and the monastery on Iona, and St Augustine as the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
The modern half is different in kind. Who leads which church, who appoints whom, what a gurdwara is, and the right everyone in the UK has to practise whichever faith they choose, or no faith at all. Roman Catholic is the largest denomination after the established churches, and Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Quakers are the other Protestant groups the handbook names. It also carries the festivals of the faiths practised here, Diwali, Hannukah, the two Eids and Vaisakhi, and the four patron saints and their days.
A handful of questions sit outside that story. The Crusades, the Huguenots who came here as refugees from France, the Quakers who set up the first formal groups against slavery, the medieval cathedral still standing at Durham, and the medieval stained glass at York Minster.
Most are plain recall. A name, a year, a book, a role, or which side someone was on.
The modern questions reward one thing, which is holding on to how each church is organised rather than learning four names on their own. England has an established church with the monarch at its head. Scotland has a Presbyterian one that is not a state church. Once those two shapes are clear, several questions answer themselves, including the ones on who appoints the senior clergy and who chairs what.
Head of the Church and leader of the Church. Two different people. The monarch is the head of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is its spiritual leader. A third role sits behind both, because in practice the Prime Minister chooses the Archbishop and the other senior appointments, on the recommendation of a committee that the Church appoints.
The Church of England and the Church of Scotland. The Church of England is the official church of the state in England and has existed since the 1530s. The Church of Scotland is Presbyterian, run by ministers and elders, with an elected leadership and no state role. Its General Assembly is chaired by the Moderator, who holds the post for a single year. Neither Wales nor Northern Ireland has an established Church at all.
The Episcopal Church. Beyond England the Church of England answers to the name Anglican, and in Scotland and in the United States it is known as the Episcopal Church. That is not the Church of Scotland, which is a separate body with a separate history.
Two breaks with Rome, and they are not the same event. The Church of England dates from the 1530s. Scotland's Parliament ended the Pope's authority in 1560. Tie each date to its country rather than learning the numbers on their own.
The two Eids. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, and its date moves each year. Eid ul Adha recalls the prophet Ibrahim, who was ready to sacrifice his son because God asked it of him. Alongside them, Diwali is kept by both Hindus and Sikhs, while Vaisakhi is the Sikh festival that celebrates the founding of the Khalsa.
The figures for who believes what are from 2009. Five questions here ask what share of people described themselves as Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or of no religion, and every one of them is keyed to the Citizenship Survey taken that year. The 2021 Census for England and Wales found a country that had moved a long way since, with fewer than half describing themselves as Christian and more than a third reporting no religion at all.
If those older numbers 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 what that survey found. Answer the survey. When one of these comes up in practice, a Worth knowing note appears beside the answer with the current figures, so you learn both.
Pick this one if the Tudor and Stuart years are where your practice score drops, or if the modern church questions still feel like four names with no shape. A large part of it is shared with Festivals, Customs and Traditions, and it meets Kings, Queens and the Monarchy at the points where the crown and the church are the same question. If you would rather work a whole chapter, the history is chapter 3 and the modern half is chapter 4.