About Road to Citizenship
Road to Citizenship is divided into nine major Parts. Part 4 consists
of ten lessons specifically covering the information you need to know
to successfully complete the history and government test.
Road to Citizenship contains both written and spoken English so you
can study by both reading and listening. You can also keep a record
of the work you have done in each section of the program.
The current version of Road to Citizenship (Version 3.0) was released
in February 2003. This was a major revision and contains accurate information
including the results from the Fall 2002 elections.
Table of Contents
Section 1: Am I Qualified
Find Out If You Are Qualified For Citizenship
Section 2: Planning Ahead
Make a Plan to Become a Citizen
Section 3: Applying for Citizenship
Fill Out Your Application Form
Section 4: Citizenship Lessons
Study U.S. History and Government for the Citizenship Test
Section 5: Practicing English
Practice Your English (if needed)
Section 6: Taking the Test
Take a Sample Citizenship Test
Section 7: The Interview
Get Ready For Your Citizenship Interview
Section 8: The Naturalization Ceremony
Get Ready for the Naturalization Ceremony
Section 9: Congratulations
Learn What You Can Do After You Become a Citizen
Overview of Contents
Part 1: Am I qualified?
There are eight requirements for naturalization (age, lawful admission
to the United States, time living in the United States, good moral character,
loyalty, English Language, knowledge of United States history and government,
and the oath of allegiance).
You can read about each requirement or listen and get explanations
of the words used. For each requirement you answer questions by clicking
on Yes or No buttons to find out if you are qualified. You can also
answer the questions to find out if your child or someone else you know
is qualified.
Some people have a background that is very complicated. If your background
is too complicated for the program to give an answer, the program tells
you that it cannot provide a good answer.
Part 2: Planning Ahead
In this Part you can make a plan to become a United States citizen.
You can find out what will happen during the citizenship process and
what you will need to do. And, you can read about how to use local and
Internet resources to prepare for citizenship.
Here you can find telephone numbers and addresses for I.N.S. offices.
This is easy to do by clicking on your state on a map or by choosing
your state from a list. You can also get the World Wide Web addresses
that will help you. If you are connected to the Internet, you can click
on the web addresses in Road to Citizenship to see the web sites.
Part 3: Applying for Citizenship
In this Part, you can learn about how to apply for citizenship. You
can fill out an application form (Form N-4You can erase with the click
of a mouse. You can also get definitions of the words and explanations
for the questions on the form.
You to enter the required information at your own pace, save it and
come back to review or edit it. When your application form is complete,
you can preview it and check it, and then print it. Or you can print
out blank forms. If you need to include extra information, for example,
explanations, there is a way to do that, too.
Part 4: Citizenship Lessons
In this part you study the U.S. history and government information
you need to know for the citizenship test. There are 10 lessons. Each
lesson is a good length for busy people. You can learn vocabulary (key
words and concepts discussed in the lesson) and practice recording yourself
saying the words or definitions. The proven listen-speak-compare process
helps you improve if you need help with English pronunciation. If you’d
rather listen than read, you can listen to all the lesson material.
The lessons include:
Lesson 1: Freedom and Responsibility
(about the rights and responsibilities of citizens)
Lesson 2: The Flag and the National Anthem
(including also the Pledge of Allegiance)
Lesson 3: Becoming a Country
(about the early history of the United States)
Lesson 4: The Constitution and the Bill of Rights
(with details you need to know for the test)
Lesson 5: Federal, State and Local Government
(government structure in the United States)
Lesson 6: The Executive Branch
(about part of the federal government)
Lesson 7: The Legislative Branch
(about Congress)
Lesson 8: The Judicial Branch
(about the Supreme Court)
Lesson 9: The U.S. Grows to 50 States
(about the later history of the United States)
Lesson 10: The United States Today
(about who holds important offices today)
After you’ve studied each lesson, you can take a quiz. The quizzes
are multiple choice format and you can hear any question and any answer
as many times as you like. You have two tries to get the right answer
and the program keeps score for you. If you take the quiz again, the
questions and answers are given in a different order.
If you’d like to study this material away from the computer,
you can print a lesson or a quiz and read it anywhere.
Part of what you need to know is the name of your state governor, state
capital, and your two U.S. senators. In Lesson 10, you can click on
your state on a map and find out this information. You can click on
the names of the senators, the governor, or the state capital to hear
them pronounced. And you can record yourself saying their names.
Sample Text Screen
This is a sample screen from one of the ten history and government
lessons (Lesson 3, Becoming a Country) of Part 4 of Road to Citizenship
showing page one of the lesson text.
In the real program (since this is only a screen shot it will not work
here), you can click on the icon of the "little guy", and
the text on the page is spoken.
At the top right of the screen is a navigation palette. In the program,
clicking on these buttons takes you to various parts of the lesson.
The lesson text contains the facts you need to know to take the citizenship
exam. Some of the key words (or phrases) are highlighted. If you click
on one of these highlighted words or phrases, a dialog box opens showing
the word and its definition. You can hear both of these spoken.
Sample Word List
This sample screen from Lesson 3 (Becoming a Country), Section 4, shows
the Word List exercise.
On the left of the screen is a scrollable field containing the word
list for this lesson. In the real program, clicking on one of the items
in this list displays the word and its definition on the right . Click
on the "little guy" preceding the word or definition to hear
it spoken (since this is only a screen shot it will not work here).
At the bottom right of the screen is the recording palette. The program
allows you to record yourself saying the word or definition and then
play it back to hear yourself or to hear the model recording immediately
followed by your recording. This proven listen-imitate-compare method
gives you practice speaking English clearly.
The instructions are always clear and easy to understand, making it
easy for you to know what you can do on each screen. You don't need
a lot of computer experience to be able to use the program!
Sample Quiz Screen
This sample screen shows the Self-Quiz Exercise for Lesson 3 of Section
4.
At the top left of the screen is the question. Under this are the five
possible answers. In the real program (since this is only a screen shot
it will not work here), you can click on the "little guy"
at the top left to hear the question spoken or click on the "little
guy" preceding an answer to hear that answer spoken.
You click on the answer you think is correct and the program tells
you whether you were right or not. You have two attempts at each question.
As you go through the quiz, your results are displayed on the score
board on the right.
You can take the quizzes as many times as you wish. The questions are
randomly chosen and the answers are always scrambled. This exercise
helps you determine how well you understand the material presented in
the lesson.
Part 5: Practicing English
If you would like help with English for citizenship, this Part is made
for you!
Here you practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing English
for citizenship. You can practice with words, numbers and dates, questions
and answers, and the sample sentences for testing by the I.N.S. There
is plenty of material, so you can come back to this Part again and again
if you want. You can make each activity easier or harder. For example,
when you practice reading, you can set the length of time that you have
to read the material. In some activities, you match what you hear with
what you see, and in others it is harder — for example, you read
a question and choose an answer that goes with the question.
This Part provides variety and can be used in different ways depending
on the kind of practice you need. The goal is to help you become more
familiar and comfortable with the English needed for citizenship. If
dates make you hesitate while you translate from your native language,
practice the dates. If you can read well but need help understanding
spoken American English, practice the listening exercises. If you can
understand spoken English but need help with writing and reading, practice
matching the written words with what you understand from listening.
The most important activities in this part are the 4 activities with
sentences, because the sentences used are the ones provided by the I.N.S.
as examples for the test of written English. The sentences are divided
into easy and hard categories. The easy sentences are about everyday
activities and the hard sentences are about U.S. history and government.
Part 6: Taking the Test
This Part offers four activities:
a sample history and government test
a sample test of written English
a test of harder questions, and
a sample test for the elderly
If you want to take the tests away from the computer, you can print
copies of all the tests, except for the test of written English (because
you need to listen in this test). Answer keys are provided in the printed
tests.
The sample history and government test puts together the material in
all the different lessons from Part 4. The 20 questions test is different
each time you take it. You can listen to the questions and answers.
The program calculates and saves a score for you. Here you have one
try to get the right answer because at the actual test you will need
to know the right answer.
The test for elderly people is for people who qualify for an easier
test. This test has 20 questions like the sample history and government
test, but there are only 25
questions that may appear in this test. So if you take the test a second
time, you will see many of the same questions, but in a different order.
In the sample English writing test, you listen to 2 sentences and write
or type them, then check your answers. One sentence is an easy sentence
about everyday life and one is a harder question about U.S. history
or government. In Part 5, when you practice English, you can listen
as many times as you like, but here you can only listen three times.
Each time you take the test you get different sentences. There are about
100 sentences that may appear in the test. If you get the question wrong,
you can see the right answer. If you typed the right number of words
but spelled one of them wrong, the program underlines the word you had
wrong.
In the Harder Questions activity, you can practice answering the 6
questions provided by the I.N.S. that require long answers. You will
get the same 6 questions each time. The longest answer is naming the
13 original colonies that became the first states in the United States.
This is truly hard, but it gives you a chance to practice - don’t
worry if you make small mistakes in spelling or choosing words.
7: The Interview
Here you can practice listening to 10 sample interview questions and
answering them. You can record your answers and listen to how they sound.
Each time you practice, you will hear different questions. This is good
practice, because you cannot know ahead of time what questions the interviewer
might ask. The questions are presented in random order. Some questions
may not apply to you, for example, there may be a question about your
children even if you do not have children.
It is important to know that you can ask the interviewer to repeat
a question or to ask it in a different way. This Part includes examples
you can practice to politely ask the interviewer to repeat a question.
Since the interview is based partly on your application form, you can
also study vocabulary that comes from the application form in this Part.
Part 8: The Ceremony
In the naturalization ceremony you can relax and enjoy the last step
in becoming a citizen. The important part of the ceremony is taking
the Oath of Allegiance.
In this Part you learn about the naturalization ceremony by reading
or listening. And you learn the meaning of the Oath of Allegiance. Each
part of the oath and all the words in the oath are explained in plain
English so you can understand the promise you make when taking the oath.
You can practice saying the oath, so you will feel comfortable at the
ceremony. You can also practice pronouncing the vocabulary used in the
oath.
Part 9: A New Citizen
In this Part, we congratulate you on becoming a U.S. citizen and remind
you about some of your new rights that you studied in Part 4. You can
find out how to use some of your new rights, such as how to get a U.S.
passport, how to register to vote, how to bring family members to the
United States, and how to get a Certificate of Citizenship for your
children, if they are eligible.
The addresses of helpful web sites are listed. If you are connected
to the Internet, you can click on the web addresses to see the web sites.
System Requirements
PC (only)
- IBM 386 or compatible PC
- Windows 3.1/95/98/ME/2000,/NT/XP
- 32+ MB RAM
- 10 MB hard disk space
- CD-ROM drive
- Sound card and microphone
Network Option
There is also a classroom version, networked option for Road to Citizenship. It is designed for adult education centers, libraries, schools and colleges, and contains a student management system, network installation and five (5) CDs for student use.
Pricing & Network Option
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