Volunteers helped legal residents fill out stacks of forms, immigration attorneys reviewed applications, photographers took passport photos, a local credit union offered $675 loans to help people pay the application fee and the U.S. Postal Service sent off the application packages via certified mail.
Although some in attendance were nervous about the impending change to the new test, others, such as Inglewood husband and wife Maria and Jose Delgado, vowed to put nothing to chance and studied the new and old versions.
"Something that's new always makes you nervous," Jose said. "So we're going to be prepared for both."
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tony.barboza@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Sample exam
Could you pass? Questions that appear on the new citizenship test:
Questions
1. What does the Constitution do?
2. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
3. If both the president and the vice president can no longer serve, who becomes president?
4. What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?
5. Why did the colonists fight the British?
6. What was one important thing that Abraham Lincoln did?
7. What major event happened on Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States?
8. Name one U.S. territory.
Answers
1. Sets up the government, defines the government and protects basic rights of Americans.
2. Checks and balances, separation of powers.
3. The speaker of the House.
4. Serve on a jury and vote in a federal election.
5. Because of high taxes (taxation without representation), because the British army stayed in their houses (boarding, quartering) and because they didn't have self-government.
6. Freed the slaves (Emancipation Proclamation), saved (or preserved) the Union and led the United States during the Civil War.
7. Terrorists attacked the United States.
8. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
