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Denmark’s Tougher Citizenship Test Stumps Even Its Natives
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/0 ... tizenship-test.html
Which Danish restaurant gained a third Michelin star in February 2016?
How many municipalities are there in Denmark?
In what constellation did the 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe discover a new star?
Questions such as those are part of a new Danish citizenship test so difficult that more than two-thirds of applicants who took it for the first time in June failed, the Integration Ministry confirmed this week.
The center-right government of Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, which has been tightening rules on immigration, has made little effort to hide the goal of the new test: to make it significantly harder to become Danish, as Europe struggles to cope with a refugee crisis.
But critics of the test — which includes 40 questions covering subjects such as Danish film, the functioning of local government and, of course, the Vikings — say that it is too tough, and that even many Danes would be hard-pressed to pass it.
Danish Radio recently asked the actor Morten Grunwald a question on the test: When was the premiere of the first movie about the Olsen Gang, a fictional criminal syndicate? Mr. Grunwald, a star of the film, replied, “That, I can’t even answer myself.” His memory was jogged when he was given the choices: 1968, 1970 or 1971. (It was 1968.)
Jakob Nielsen, editor of the online edition of Politiken, an influential left-leaning newspaper, said the proximity of the years given in some of the multiple-choice questions seemed calculated to stump test-takers. For example, one question asks if the life span of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen was 1865 to 1931, 1870 to 1940 or 1892 to 1965? (The first is correct.)
He said that when Politiken posted the test online, many readers failed it. “There is no doubt that the test is aimed to discourage immigrants from coming here,” he said. “Some of the questions are just ridiculous, and many Danes couldn’t even answer them.”
He added, however, that applicants were provided free preparatory material that covered the test’s contents, and that aspiring Danish citizens who were determined enough could persevere.
Inger Stojberg, the integration minister, confirmed that 68.8 percent of the 2,400 people who took the test in June had failed it. But she was unrepentant about the test’s difficulty, telling Politiken that being Danish is “very special” and that “citizenship is something you have to earn.”
“Too many did not prepare properly,” she said.
The new test comes as the Danish government has clamped down on immigration, including by introducing a law requiring recently arrived refugees to hand over valuables, such as gold or jewelry, to help pay for the costs of lodging them.
The test replaced a version introduced by the previous center-left government in 2014, and critics like Mr. Nielsen say it is undeniably harder. Applicants must now get 80 percent of the answers correct to pass, up from 73 percent previously.
Even without the citizenship exam, the requirements to qualify for Danish citizenship are arduous and include passing an oral and written exam in Danish, a difficult language with an abundance of vowel sounds that linguists say makes it hard to learn. Applicants must also be able to prove that they have been able to support themselves financially for four and a half of the past five years.
In Denmark, as in several European countries, a far-right populist party has been appealing to voters by warning against the perils of immigration. The Danish People’s Party has been a central proponent of the tougher citizenship test. Mr. Rasmussen’s governing center-right party does not have a majority in Parliament and often needs the support of lawmakers from the People’s Party to pass legislation.
With its generous welfare state, strong tradition of egalitarianism and Scandinavian quality of life, Denmark is an attractive country for many foreigners. The country was recently ranked as the world’s happiest for the third time since 2013.
As to the questions that started this article, Geranium in Copenhagen was the restaurant that got three stars; there are 98 municipalities; and the constellation was Cassiopeia.
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