One source, and only one
The citizenship test is unusual among exams in that the examiner tells you exactly where every question comes from. Every test question is based on the official study guide, Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, and the guide’s own study-questions chapter says the same thing from the other side: you will be asked about facts and ideas presented in the guide, and all the answers can be found in it. The guide even carries a notice about third-party study material, this site included: the only official study guide is Discover Canada, it should be your primary resource, and anything else you use, you use at your own risk.
Take that notice at face value. This site summarises the guide chapter by chapter and cites the page every point comes from, and the summaries are useful for reviewing and for practising; they are not a substitute for reading the original, which is free and comes in every format you could want: online, as a PDF or eBook for offline reading, as an audio version, or as a paper copy you can order. Pick whichever you will actually finish. You can start at any time; the only deadline is the window on your invitation.
Sources for this section
What the test asks about, and in what shape
The test has 20 questions, each either multiple choice or true or false, in English or French, with 45 minutes to answer them, and 15 right answers pass. You get 3 chances. The subjects are published too: the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and Canada’s history, geography, economy, government, laws and symbols. What IRCC does not publish is how many of the 20 questions come from each subject, so no plan should assume a quota, and this site’s mock test draws from every subject rather than to one.
The guide has its own advice on how to prepare, in its chapter on applying for citizenship, and it is sound: study the guide; ask a friend or family member to quiz you about Canada; ask a local school, college, community centre or settlement organization about citizenship classes; and take the free English or French classes the government offers. The second of those is the one most people skip and the one that most resembles the test, because being asked a question out loud is a different skill from recognising the answer on a page.
Sources for this section
A reading order that follows the test’s subjects
The guide is arranged as a book, from a welcome through rights, history, government, regions, economy and symbols; the test is arranged by subject. The table maps one onto the other, with the chapter on this site that summarises each part. The order below is a suggestion, not IRCC’s: it starts with the short chapter whose material is certain to be asked about, moves through the parts that are mostly mechanism and can be learned as systems, and leaves the long history chapters, which are mostly names and dates, for when the rest is settled.
| Test subject | Where it is in Discover Canada | Summarised here |
|---|---|---|
| Rights and responsibilities | Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship; the Oath of Citizenship | Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship |
| Government | How Canadians Govern Themselves; Federal Elections | How Canadians Govern Themselves; Federal Elections and Levels of Government |
| Laws | The Justice System | The Justice System |
| Symbols | Canadian Symbols | Canadian Symbols |
| Geography | Canada’s Regions | Canada’s Regions |
| Economy | Canada’s Economy | Canada’s Economy |
| History | Who We Are; Canada’s History; Modern Canada | Who We Are, then the history chapters in order, then Modern Canada |
- Rights and responsibilities first: it is short, the test is explicitly about it, and the official sample questions open with it. Read the oath with it, because the oath is the one passage of the guide you will say out loud.
- Government, elections and the justice system next, as systems: who does what, how a law is made, how a member of Parliament is chosen. Understood once, these are hard to forget and easy to answer however the question is worded.
- Symbols, regions and the economy are lists: the flag and the anthem, the provinces and their capitals, what each region produces. Learn them with a map and a table rather than by rereading prose.
- History last and in order, from the first peoples to the present, because the guide’s history is a sequence and the dates make sense only in it. Who We Are and Modern Canada frame that sequence from either end.
How to read a chapter so it sticks
The guide’s study-questions chapter says the questions are about facts and ideas, and that is a good description of the two things to take from every chapter. The ideas are why something is the way it is: why Canada is a constitutional monarchy, a parliamentary democracy and a federal state, as the guide puts it, and what each of those words commits the country to. The facts are the names, dates and numbers that hang on those ideas. Read a section for the idea first; the facts attach to it far more easily than they do to each other.
Then test yourself before moving on, in the form the test uses. The guide’s own sample questions are the model, and IRCC publishes practice questions as well; this site reproduces the official ones with their answer key and adds a bank of its own, by chapter and by subject, each question citing the page that makes its answer right. Practise a chapter straight after reading it, collect the questions you get wrong, and go back to the guide for those rather than to the explanation alone. The one thing the practice cannot teach is reading the question slowly, and a true-or-false question punishes a skimmed word more than any other kind.
Two kinds of fact need special handling. Some the guide gets wrong by now, because it has not been reprinted since the world moved on; the chapter on symbols and the chapter on the oath disagree about who the Sovereign is. Others are true only for you: your member of Parliament, your provincial representative, the capital of the province you live in, which the guide’s sample questions ask about by design. For both, learn the role from the guide and look the name up on an official page the week of your test. The facts-that-change page on this site keeps the list, with the guide’s wording and the current situation side by side.
The last week before the window opens
Once the status tracker says the test is scheduled, the invitation usually arrives at least 2 to 3 business days before the start date, so that week is for logistics as much as for revision. Find the invitation, including in the junk folder, and read its PDF: it has the dates, the link, your application number and your UCI, which you will need to sign in. Set up the computer you will use, with Chrome or Safari, a working webcam and no VPN, and find the piece of ID you will show it, your permanent resident card or a valid photo ID with a signature. Decide where you will sit, in good light, alone, with nothing personal in the background.
For revision, do two mock tests under the real conditions, 20 questions in 45 minutes, and read the chapters your wrong answers came from, not the whole guide again. Reread the rights and responsibilities chapter and the oath the day before. Check the facts-that-change page, and the official pages it links to, for the current names. And on the day, remember what the test forbids: no study materials open, no other device, no other tabs, and no back button. Then press start, and read every question twice.
Sources for this section
Written from the official pages linked under each section, in our own words. IRCC changes its process — confirm on canada.ca before you rely on a date or a step here.