Thirty-Three Take Australia Citizenship Test

Queensland, Australia (AHN) - Thirty-three residents took the Australian Citizenship Test on Monday, the first day the new citizenship requirement became mandatory.

Most of the examinees found the 20-question quiz easy, although one failed. On its second day, 74 foreigners will go today through the test in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which oversees the conduct of the test, said the sole failing examinee got a high mark but failed on one of the values questions.

"The pass mark for the test is 60 percent, including answering correctly the three mandatory questions about the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship," Work Permit quoted Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

The 20 questions were drawn from a pool of 200, but examinees need to answer correct only 12 out of 20.

Despite the apparent ease of passing the citizenship test, the system is criticized by some groups. Kate Gauthier, national coordinator of the refugee support group A Just Australia, said, "If they want to have Australia be more integrated they should spend more money on programs that achieve that instead of punishing people who are having trouble achieving that [integration] because they have language barriers and are recovering from things like torture," the Sunday Herald Sun quoted her.

The citizenship test discriminates on non-English speakers, critics said. Aside from the test, Australia also set a 7.0 band score requirement on the International English Language Test System for would-be citizens.

Failing examinees can repeat the citizenship test over and over again. "For those who have not passed the test, a print out of their results will give them information about their test results. This will help them to prepare to sit the test again. People can sit the test as many times as they need to in order to pass," Minister Andrews said.