# Could you be Australian? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 18, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600 "2009-09-18T15:40:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/1 "2009-09-18T15:40:28Z")
Apparently there’s a new citizenship test for Australians, which you must pass to become naturalised: [Practice test](http://www.citizenship.gov.au/learn/cit_test/practice/) I’m an Australian, so I had no trouble passing it 🙂 – but it seems to me that most of the questions and answers just require a reading knowledge of English, and a bit of common sense to eliminate the distractors. So, how many Dopers could become Australians? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/2 "2009-09-18T15:58:55Z")
Perfect score. And I don’t even have a marsupial pouch. As all Australians do, as is well known. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/3 "2009-09-18T16:03:04Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I’m an Australian, so I had no trouble passing it 🙂 – but it seems to me that most of the questions and answers just require a reading knowledge of English, and a bit of common sense to eliminate the distractors. You’d be wrong on that. I had two out of five correct. Since they’re random questions maybe I just got all hard ones. That’s not likely. Indigenous knowledge counts for a lot for the ease of the question. To make it worse I’ve read a lot on Australian settlement and exploration, so it’s not like I don’t know anything about Australia. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/4 "2009-09-18T16:11:54Z")
2 wrong out of 20 and I am sure that my knowledge the Canadian political system helped me with a lot of these questions. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/5 "2009-09-18T16:27:23Z")
18/20! I’m ready to emmigrate! ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/6 "2009-09-18T16:31:32Z")
Perfect score, 20 out of 20 correct. An interesting bit of family trivia is that my paternal grandfather almost immigrated to Australia after WWII. He was in the navy and saw a large part of the world during his service, but it was Australia he fell in love with. He said it was the most beautiful country he’d ever seen and felt very much at home there. The only reason he didn’t is because he had to take care of his mother and sister and they would not move away from Tennessee. My mother said after he passed away that he told her it was the greatest regret of his life that he never went. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/7 "2009-09-18T16:43:06Z")
19/20 Pretty straight forward if you are familiar with how democracies work and can read English. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/8 "2009-09-18T16:44:56Z")
20/20 but several of them were lucky guesses. The colors of the Aboriginal flag? No, not in my store of knowledge. . . ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/9 "2009-09-18T16:51:09Z")
Since the U.S. and Australia share similar ideals about democracy and individual rights it’s not going to be hard for people from the U.S. (or U.K., Ireland, etc.) to get most of those questions. For an immigrant from Burma or Indonesia some of those concepts might not be as intuitive and obvious. I got 9/10. I don’t know what the colors of the aboriginal flag are. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/10 "2009-09-18T16:51:22Z")
19 out of 20, also with some lucky guesses. Missed the one about Anzac day. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/11 "2009-09-18T16:54:11Z")
Yes, the Aboriginal flag and Anzac Day require a bit of local knowledge. However, Australia derived its political systems from the U.K. and the U.S., so the general structure should be familiar to outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![Brandus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Brandus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brandus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/12 "2009-09-18T16:56:24Z")
19/20 Crikey! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/13 "2009-09-18T16:56:34Z")
Yay, 19 out of 20! ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/14 "2009-09-18T17:00:34Z")
I got 19 out of 20, too. I missed Anzac day (of course now that I look it up, the answer is obvious!) I guessed on maybe 4, so I would have passed even if I guessed wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/15 "2009-09-18T17:01:09Z")
I got 17/20. I’m ready to go. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/16 "2009-09-18T17:48:32Z")
18/20. I don’t know what happened on 1/1/1901. Woo, Australia here I come! ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/17 "2009-09-18T17:56:49Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > 18/20. I don’t know what happened on 1/1/1901. Woo, Australia here I come! Well, at least two major events took place on that date. One was the start of the 20th century (in spite of those who think it started in 1900). I’m not sure if that was the reason for it to be the day the Commonwealth of Australia started up, but it’s a neat coincidence if not. And it also means that Australians can’t celebrate the start of their country with a national holiday, because January 1st is already a holiday for another reason. So Australia Day is on January 26th, a day which really only commemorates the start of New South Wales in 1788. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/18 "2009-09-18T17:59:33Z")
20/20, but i am an Aussie citizen, even though i don’t live there. Interestingly enough, this new test came about because there was quite a bit of controversy about the old one. In particular, the previous test, which was based on a booklet of information, contained some questions about pop-cultural stuff like sporting heroes. Questions like that are, in my opinion, completely inappropriate and irrelevant for a citizenship test. I don’t give a flying fuck if a new citizen knows who Don Bradman and Cathy Freeman are. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/19 "2009-09-18T18:02:56Z")
18/20, and I would confidently declare I know jack-shit about Australia. Some of the questions are easy to guess the right answer, or elimiate obvious wrong answers, with a bit of common sense. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600/20 "2009-09-18T18:09:58Z")
17/20. I was disappointed at the lack of questions about philosophy, or knife identification, or where & how to obtain the precious juice. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-be-australian/510600.md?page=2)