Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and afterwards, when GOP nominee Donald Trump won the Electoral College but not the popular votes, Americans displayed a disconcerting lack of civics knowledge and awareness. Many supporters of Hillary Clinton suddenly began to question why the Electoral College system is still used, while Trump’s supporters chanted for Hillary to be locked up. Whether or not Clinton should be imprisoned, the 2016 election raised a series of provoking questions: Why did it take so long for Americans to realize that the United States has never used a popular vote to directly elect a president? Why are some Americans surprised that now-President Trump is struggling to follow through on campaign promises like sending ‘Crooked …show more content…
Test content varies greatly from greatly from nation to nation, and in some cases from test to test. In the U.S. in particular, individual tests differ exceedingly since applicants will be asked ten questions from a list of one hundred by an interviewer and there is no specified process for how the interviewer selects questions. As a result, some individuals may receive harder questions than others. For instance, “Who wrote the Federalist Papers,” one possible question, is much more difficult to answer than “Who is the current President?” The inherent difference between these questions raises concerns among some researchers and test takers. The former question in particular raises brows because it is not relevant in modern American society or politics. While the Constitution continues to be debated and used by the judicial system to determine the legality of actions taken by the U.S. government, essays arguing for the ratification of the Constitution receive no notice outside of civics class. Yet naturalization applicants must and do resign themselves to studying material such as this that in all likelihood, they will never be asked again after taking the test (“What Does the US Citizenship Exam Actually