U.S. Citizenship QuestionsThe citizenship reading test
You read one sentence aloud. Every sentence is built from this short official vocabulary list, so if you can read these words, you can pass.
How it works. The officer shows you a sentence on a tablet or card. You read it out loud. You get up to three sentences; you only need to read one correctly. Small pronunciation mistakes are fine as long as the officer can tell you understand the words. You do not need to read every word perfectly, but you cannot skip a word that changes the meaning.
What the sentences look like. They are civics questions, such as "Who was the first President?" or "What is the capital of the United States?" The officer then dictates the answer for the writing test, so the two tests are connected.
People
Civics
Places
Holidays
Question words
Verbs
Other function words
Other content
This list is USCIS's published reading vocabulary for the naturalization test. The 2025 civics changes did not change the English tests. Confirm against the current list at uscis.gov/citizenship.
Ready when you are.
Ten minutes a day is enough. Start with the first card.
Start the interview trainer