I booked my test on 29/01/21 and took the test in Croydon on 01/03/21- if I remember correctly there were some earlier slots, but I wanted to give myself 1 month to study.
I am a native English speaker and have lived in the UK for +35 years & I did study for this (I didn’t want the hassle of re-taking & frankly would have been embarrassed if I failed as everyone said it was “a joke”) - I didn’t put in too much effort, but I am pleased I did study as I think it would be a toss up if most of my British friends and family would pass if they took it off the hoof- & it would be down to luck of the draw as to the questions. I may have just squeaked in a pass if I did not study, but it wasn’t worth the hassle of a fail.
I only purchased the one book - Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents - and started to read it after I booked my test-I read it through cover to cover once and then played sections of it on speakers via audio books every once in a while whilst cleaning the house, etc as a lazy way for the info to sink in. I also made myself a few flash cards (was still on furlough so had time) to remember some key dates, names & facts that wouldn’t sink in and went through these with my husband a few times. There is an excellent free website that I found
https://lifeintheuktestweb.co.uk -it has 40 interactive tests & I would say these are virtually identical to the real thing - they only take about 5 mins each (there is a timer)- & if you can pass each of these tests (18/24 correct) you will be absolutely fine. Remember your questions will be random on the real test, so it’s ok to get 1 or 2 questions wrong on each practice test, but if you fail any of these, wait awhile & do them again - I went through these twice (I failed 3 first time I took these & none on second pass so left it at that)
My actual questions were a mixture of the very easy (What is the capital of Wales?) , average (Who hid in oak tree? Bonny Prince Charlie) to a bit more tricky - How many Members of Scottish Parliament are there? (How many of your friends actually know this off the top of their head?) What year were women given the Right to Vote at the same age as men? - tricky as many people know 1918 for Suffrage -but voting rights at the same age as men was not until 1928- not as many people know this AND both these dates were options for the answers!
Hope this helps!
