The English test has three parts, and all three happen during the same interview, with the same officer.
- Speaking: the officer judges your English from how you understand and answer the questions about your Form N-400. There is no separate speaking test.
- Reading: the officer shows you up to three sentences. You must read one aloud correctly. The sentences use words from the USCIS reading vocabulary list.
- Writing: the officer reads up to three sentences aloud. You must write one correctly. The words come from the USCIS writing vocabulary list.
What the sentences are about
USCIS does not publish the sentences, only the two word lists, and the lists tell you what to expect: civics and history. People (Lincoln, Washington, Adams), civics words (Congress, President, Senators, Bill of Rights, right, state), places (United States, America, Washington, D.C., New York City, Canada, Mexico, Alaska, California), months, holidays, question words and a few verbs. A reading sentence is usually a question, such as “Who was the first President?”, and a writing sentence its answer, such as “Washington was the first President.”
What counts as correct
Reading: you must read the sentence in a way that shows you understand it, without long pauses. Writing: the sentence must mean the same thing as the one dictated. Spelling, capitalization and punctuation errors do not fail it on their own. If you miss one sentence, the officer gives you another, up to three.
The English test page here does both parts in a browser: it reads a sentence to you, listens while you read it aloud and marks the words it heard, and dictates a sentence for you to write and check. Every sentence is built from the two official lists.
Practice reading and writing