i got notice yesterday that my test wil be in 2 weeks (mississauga) . its in the afternoon and they said to allow 3/4 hours for entire process, sounds like a long time. anyways my question is will i need to know the national anthem for the test of swearing in ceremony ? it also said i need all my passports current and expired wow!

Yes it will take that long as they have to go through everyone and ensure they're eligible. They also go through your passports to confirm that you've spent the time in the country that you are claiming.

No you don't need to memorize the national anthem, you sing that at the swearing in far down the road.

It is in the book, so there could be questions about it on the test. But at the ceremony they should give you a card with the words in case you forgot .

Yikes, I got rid of all my old passports last year when back in the UK. My current passport I got the year before we landed so will they still need my old ones?

They should only need the ones from the time you've been in Canada. I had my older one, but they didn't ask for it.

As said by others, most of the time is checking documents, and depending how many of you there are, it could take some time.

My test was at Hamilton, and I think they go through the list alphabetically, so my last name was fairly near the end.

Process was that they took me into a room, looked at my paperwork and while doing this asked me questions, for example, how long have I been here, who do I work for. Basically general stuff to check you are you and also to check your language ability.

You then get a sheet to fill out your test answers on.

Once you are back in the waiting room, you wait until everyone has been seen then you are taken to the test room.

You then take the test. Cannot remember how long you are given, 30 mins perhaps? How long it takes you depends on the questions you get really. It is all multiple choice, and the answers will all be found in the Discover Canada book (read inside front and back covers, there is info there too which can come up)


I believe different sets of questions are given to people during the test, to prevent cheating.

Once you have finished, put your hand up, they collect the paper, you leave.

Some places do seem to give you your results on the same take and if you pass, you take your oath, not sure what the situation around this. Most seem to wait a few weeks for the results to come back.

In regards to passports, I'm fairly sure I took only my current passport, and that did not seem to be a problem. No harm taking any expired ones if you have them.

Depending on where you take your test, the process can take a while.
Scarborough was about two hours as they had about 50 people sitting test at the same time so paperwork and language checking was laborious to say the least. We all sat in the test room and were called to the front individually to one of about three people.
Test time was 30 minutes but you can hand in paper and leave as soon as you we done.
All in all I was there 2.5 hours
We had to wait for notification of result through the mail.
They indicated two to four months wait for this but mine took two weeks, guess they are declaring worst case wait time.
Yes, read all the booklet thoroughly, everything is in there.
Good Luck!

And for the passports, I was told by my fact checker that they only need the passport(s) that cover your PR time period, ie. to verify your in/out of Canada dates.

..we took our test 4 months ago and still waiting!

The passports they need are those used to get into Canada and all passports since moving to Canada. Yes, they are required to prove residency. We had lost hubby's expired passport from when he moved here, but we gathered loads of documents, letters of support as proof of residency and it all worked out!

Know the Discover Canada study guide. ANYTHING in the book could appear in the test! There are a lot of dates and names, and they might show up. There may be questions about the anthem as it's in the book.

There's a lot of information to learn, and it takes awhile to grasp it. Even me, as a Canadian born and raised, didn't know most of the info in there. Only seemed vaguely familiar from learning it in school. Helping hubby study, I learned and now know the stuff I should have known!

Brit Hubby just became a Canadian citizen on March 7, 2013. It was a very emotional experience. He took the test on March 6, got 20/20, and had the ceremony the next day. We live in an isolated area in Ontario so they try to get everything done all together. Hubby studied a lot in the month between his notice to appear and the test date.

All the best!

.... some people bragg about it being easy - it may have been in the past but not anymore. There are a handful of questions that really make you think and can be quite ambiguous. Also they may ask you questions on the pictures as well in the book. The failure rate has gone through the roof - if you fail we were told expect to wait up to 2 years before seeing a judge.However, finally got our request to attend the oath 4 months after taking the test.

I totally agree. The important thing is to really read Discover Canada cover to cover and DIGEST it. As the saying goes, any question is easy if you know the answer. Even though I flew through the test, there were a couple of questions that I had to think about. The one that sticks in my mind is :
"How many Canadians have died, in wars defending Canada?"
1. 5,000
2. 25,000
3. 50,000
4. 110,000

In the book there was no mention of this total figure, BUT if you think back on the figures that ARE in the book, you will know that there were 60,000 in WW1, 44,000 in WW2 plus those from previous & subsequent wars, therefore the only answer that could be right is ???? (Simple maths!) I cannot emphasise enough the need to READ and DIGEST the whole book. BTW from my personal experience, I found that there were no "Trick" questions and the people from CIC were very friendly, helpful and calming, especially as such a stressful time. Full marks to them.

There's a free app for the Iphone. can't remember what its called but a quick search on the app store should find it.
it is an official one, I found the questions on it much harder than the actual test , so if you do Okay on it you should be fine for the real thing

Use Google, Most regions have on-line citizenship tests with which to practise

and again read the book if you’ve read and digested the book the test is seriously easy
Some may go as far to suggest i'st more about your ability to read and understand a topic in one of the official languages than about knowledge of Canada

On the passport thing read the sheet, from memory you’re asked to bring all the passports you have

Just be aware that some are out of date, particularly the questions about local politicians.