Citizenship · Writing Test Sentences

The officer dictates: 'The United States has fifty states.' How is 'fifty' correctly spelled?

Correct answer

fifty

  1. A fifty
  2. B fivety
  3. C fiftey
  4. D fifteen

Why this is the answer

FIFTY is spelled F-I-F-T-Y. The United States has fifty (50) states. Note the difference from FIFTEEN (15). Common misspellings to avoid: 'fivety,' 'fiftey.' Number words appear on the USCIS writing test in sentences about the country (50 states, 13 colonies/stripes). 'United States' should be capitalized (both words). Spelling number words and proper nouns correctly demonstrates the English writing ability required for naturalization.
Source: USCIS Writing Test — Fifty States

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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.

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