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Citizenship · Writing Test Sentences

A USCIS officer dictates: 'The flag has many stars.' The applicant writes: 'The flag has many stars.' Is this acceptable?

Reviewed by Jordan Morley, Editorial Lead at 247SimpleTests. Written by the 247SimpleTests Editorial Team from the official source material cited on every question.

Correct answer

Yes — the applicant correctly wrote the dictated sentence with correct spelling and meaning

  1. A Yes — the applicant correctly wrote the dictated sentence with correct spelling and meaning
  2. B No — must write in cursive
  3. C No — must use exact USCIS-approved wording
  4. D No — must include the number of stars

Why this is the answer

YES — this is acceptable. The applicant correctly wrote exactly what was dictated. USCIS writing test scoring criteria:

Passing: A written sentence that conveys the meaning of the dictated sentence with recognisable English; major words spelled correctly; sentence is legible.

Acceptable variations: Minor spelling errors in non-key words; clear understanding of what was said.

Not acceptable: Writing wrong words; completely illegible writing; writing in a language other than English. The goal is demonstrating basic English writing ability, not perfect penmanship or grammar.

Source: USCIS Citizenship Writing Test — Acceptability

Practice more questions

This question is from our US Citizenship Test Practice practice test. Take the full practice test to test your knowledge across all Writing Test Sentences and other topics.

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About this topic: Writing Test Sentences

In the writing test the officer reads a sentence aloud and you must write it so that it has the same meaning; spelling, capitalisation and punctuation errors are tolerated unless they change the meaning. The words come only from the official USCIS writing vocabulary list. This is one of 25 Writing Vocabulary questions on writing test sentences, each with a full explanation on a single study page.

New to this exam? Our Citizenship exam guide explains the format, scoring, and how to prepare.

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