Passing the Life in the UK test first time

Moving to the UK

By Kat · Sat July 2018, my sister 2020

Somewhere on your settlement or citizenship document list it says Life in the UK test. Twenty-four questions, 45 minutes, 18 right to pass, £50 a go. You sit it once. The same pass covers indefinite leave to remain (ILR) and citizenship, so it’s one test, not two.

The irony is that British people fail it. Two thirds of the 270 people the University of Essex put through a version of it in 2021 failed, most of them UK citizens who’d done the history at school. The questions are that nuanced. Which cricketer did what in 1950 isn’t in most people’s heads.

I sat mine in Croydon on 3 July 2018, a couple of weeks before my ILR application went in. I gave myself a month to study and did it in three days on practice tests. I still remember three of the questions. My sister sat hers in 2020 and had her result by email before she’d left the building. Both of us passed first time.

Here’s what I’ll take you through, in order:

• booking it and the name rule that gets people turned away at the door
• what the questions are like, with the three I still remember
• how I studied in three days, what I’d buy and what I wouldn’t
• the day itself, from the security guard to the result
• what a pass looks like now and how you use it twice

Covers	Booking, studying for and sitting the test once, then using the pass for both ILR and citizenship.
Have up front	£50 a sitting, the official handbook and the online practice tests, which were £6 for a year when I paid.
Do first	Book it, at whichever centre is least faff to get to. The pass doesn’t run out, so there’s no reason to wait.
Works for	You, if the test is on your list and you want to know what it’s actually like in the room before you walk in.

Booking the test

You book on the gov.uk test page. It’s £50, you have to book at least three days ahead and there are over 30 centres, so pick the one that’s least faff to get to. I chose Croydon because it was closest to where I lived.

The ID you can use, per the gov.uk list:

• a valid passport, which is what I used
• a valid national ID card from the EU, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway
• a photo travel document, not an emergency one
• a biometric residence permit (BRP) or card, as long as your test is within 24 months of the expiry printed on it and before 31 December 2026
• your eVisa, shown with a share code

Bring the original. A photo of it on your phone doesn’t count and they take your photo on the day too. The ID you booked with is the whole list now. No proof of address. I used my passport both times I needed ID for this and I’ve never had an eVisa, so I can’t tell you what the share-code check looks like at the desk.

Cancelling. You get the £50 back if you cancel at least 72 hours before. Inside three days you get nothing, whether you cancel or rearrange.

Who doesn’t sit it. Under 18, 65 or over, anyone with a long-term physical or mental condition that stops them (there’s an exemption form or a doctor’s letter) and anyone who’s passed it before. Australians don’t skip it. The English test you’re exempt from. This one you’re not.

What the questions are like

Twenty-four questions in 45 minutes. Some are true or false, the rest are multiple choice with four options. Every one of them comes out of the official handbook, the Guide for New Residents. You need 18 right to pass.

The three I still remember, years later:

• What year was the Great Fire of London? 1666. I’d walked past the Monument to it so many times on the way to work that this one was free.
• What was the name of the cloned sheep? Dolly.
• What was moved from Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition and where did it go? The Crystal Palace, to Sydenham. I was living in Crystal Palace at the time and had been to the little museum there, so I knew it. The palace reopened on Sydenham Hill in 1854 and burnt down in 1936.

The rest I don’t remember, which tells you something. I got very good at guessing which of four answers looked most like a handbook sentence.

You don’t get told your score. You either pass or you don’t. Mine was a receptionist calling my name. My sister’s, in 2020, was an email.

How I studied in three days

My study tactics are terrible. I’m notorious for last-minute cramming, it’s how I got through school and my teachers always said I’d have done better with more time. Probably. But by how much?

What I did in those three days was the online practice tests, over and over, until I’d memorised the answers. I read the handbook at points, but the tests are what got me through. My sister, who is not one for pub quizzes or general knowledge, did the same method for a couple of weeks and passed first go.

What to buy. One book and the online tests. That’s it.

• The handbook. Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents is the only thing the test is drawn from. It’s also on.
• The online practice tests. I used lifeintheuk.net, which was £6 for a year when I paid. The official shop now sells its own practice app and an e-learning subscription too. I never used those, so I can’t tell you which is better. The £6 one did the job for both of us.

I bought three books: the handbook, the official practice questions and a study guide. Two of them sat on the shelf. Buy the handbook and pay for the tests.

The day itself

Mine was 10am on a Tuesday, 3 July 2018, at the learndirect centre in Croydon. I got there 15 minutes early.

• The door. A security guard took my name and asked if I wanted the bathroom first. I was confused until he explained: once you’ve checked in at the desk you can’t go, presumably so no one’s hiding in there with the answers. Go before you check in.
• The sheet. I was handed a laminated sheet telling me to allow an hour and a half to two hours. It was nothing like that. About 45 minutes door to door, unless you need help, say if English isn’t your first language. They let me in at my slot and not before. Someone walked me through the rules first.
• Check-in. After about five minutes the receptionist called me up and checked my first and last name, birthplace and nationality against my passport. This is the moment the name rule bites.
• The locker. Everything went in a locker except my passport.
• The room. The supervisor checked my ID again and logged me onto a computer. There was a headset if you wanted the questions read to you.
• The test. Four practice questions first, which don’t count, then the 24 and the 45-minute clock. My screen froze a few times and I had to hit F5 each time, convinced I was about to lose my answers. I didn’t. Without the freezing I’d have been done in ten minutes.
• The wait. Back to the waiting room, bag out of the locker, sit. Tapping my foot, waiting for my name, the way you wait for an exam result or at the doctor’s. The most stressful ten minutes of the whole application.
• The result. The receptionist called my name and handed me a pass letter to sign. The woman next to me didn’t pass. She was bawling her eyes out in the lift and I’ve never forgotten it.

What’s different now, from my sister’s sitting in 2020: they take your photo on the day and the result comes by email, within about ten to twenty minutes of finishing. No receptionist, no waiting room theatre. You can rip the Band-Aid off sooner, which is kinder. I’d still have been tapping my foot, though.

What the pass is and how you use it twice

Pass today and you get a reference number, not a certificate to lose. It goes into your ILR form and later your citizenship one. The Home Office checks it against the test provider’s records.

Mine was a paper letter, signed on the day, because I sat it before the switch to reference numbers in December 2019. Here’s mine.

I put that letter in with my ILR application a couple of weeks later and attached it again for citizenship in August 2019. No one has asked to see it since. It lives with my ILR evidence and I’d keep yours the same way, number or paper.

If you don’t pass. You can rebook as many times as you need and you pay £50 each time. There’s no waiting period between goes any more, but you’re still looking at the three-day booking lead and whatever slot the centre has.

Learning it by going out

Honestly, most of what I knew walking into that room came from weekends, not the three days.

The Monument, by the Tube station of the same name, is the Great Fire, 1666. The daffodil is Wales and the thistle is Scotland, which you pick up on a walking tour without trying. In Cambridge I learnt how Henry VIII came to found Trinity College. The Crystal Palace museum is a small place in south London and it answered one of my 24 questions.

I’d been everywhere from Northern Ireland to Scotland to Wales by the time I sat it. The castles and the museums are the handbook with the walls still standing. If you’ve got a spare Saturday before your test, Stonehenge and the British Museum’s Roman rooms are where a lot of the early chapters happened.

Where this sits

The pass from this test goes in with indefinite leave to remain and comes up again a year later on applying for British citizenship, which is the order mine went. Get it done and both of those pages get easier.

If you’re further back than that, start at moving to the UK from Australia: the visa, the money before you’ve earned a pound here and the Australian admin. The test is a long way down that road, but it’s the one bit of it you can get out of the way years early.

FAQ

The whole process, on video