Hello citizenship teachers! This is a difficult time for all of us, but I'm working to put together ideas that might help. A new edition of Passing the Test is in the works, however it'll take a few months to get to press.
In the meantime, I've written a free supplement that will be posted on the New Readers Press website shortly. This is a page-by-page look at the current edition of Passing the Test, with information on which content is/is not still useful to teach for the new test, and what you'll need to add to each page in order to cover the expanded content of the new test.
Specifically, for each page, you will see which questions:
This supplement will come out soon, and while you're waiting, here are a few tricks you can teach students about the new test.
It’s a harder test, but it’s not impossible. A number of questions can be answered just by learning the order of these presidents:
"The President" is the answer to many "Who" questions:
42. Who is Commander in Chief of the U.S. military?
43. Who signs bills to become laws?
44. Who vetoes bills?
45. Who appoints federal judges?
46. The executive branch has many parts. Name one.
Communism, or "to stop the spread of Communism" is the answer to several questions, too:
109. During the Cold War, what was one main concern of the United States?
110. Why did the United States enter the Korean War?
111. Why did the United States enter the Vietnam War?
And do you know what is "required by law"?
I hope these tricks make your job a little bit less torturous in the next few months. What you're doing is important to so many people. Let's keep plugging along and doing what we can to keep our students’ dreams alive.
Posted: to Citizenship News on Tue, Sep 23, 2025
Updated: Tue, Sep 23, 2025