Criticism
Prior to its launch, the test produced considerable speculation in the British media about possible questions. Most of this was not based on factual information about what the test required, and in particular a semi-serious BBC-devised test was often quoted as being the real thing.
Upon its publication, the associated handbook was widely criticised. Particular criticism was reserved for the section on the UK's history, which was described as a "turgid, abysmal piece of writing," filled with "factual errors, sweeping generalisations gross misrepresentations." The UK Border Agency acknowledged that the first edition of the handbook "did not fulfil role particularly well."
In 2008, Lord Goldsmith stated in a report on citizenship that the test "is not seen typically as a stimulus for learning, though that was one of its stated aims."
In 2011, the government announced its intention to include questions on the UK's history and remove questions on the EU from the test.
In 2012, the New Statesman described the test as mocking Britishness since there was no general agreement amonst the population on what was or wasn't relevant to culture and history. Every member of the New Statesman editorial team failed the test which was described as irrelevant in determining who will be a good citizen.
Read more about this topic: Life In The United Kingdom Test
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“...I wasn’t at all prepared for the avalanche of criticism that overwhelmed me. You would have thought I had murdered someone, and perhaps I had, but only to give her successor a chance to live. It was a very sad business indeed to be made to feel that my success depended solely, or at least in large part, on a head of hair.”
—Mary Pickford (1893–1979)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)