Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has revised the naturalization tests that all applicants must pass to officially become citizens, the agency said in a Jan. 5 post on X.

Children participate in a U.S. citizenship ceremony at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) district office in New York on Jan. 29, 2013. John Moore/Getty Images

“Our new version of the test will ensure all new citizens understand the privilege of citizenship and what it means to be an American,” the agency said.

USCIS did not provide more details regarding the specific changes it has made in the tests.

There are two naturalization tests administered by USCIS to applicants—one for English language skills and another for civics knowledge.

On the agency’s Naturalization Interview and Tests resource page, last updated on Oct. 31, 2025, USCIS said it was implementing an updated 2025 naturalization civics test to align with a Jan. 20 national security presidential action from President Donald Trump.

“During the civics test, you will answer important questions about American history, U.S. government, and civics,” the agency said.

“The 2025 naturalization civics test is an oral test consisting of 20 questions from the list of 128 civics test questions. You must answer 12 questions correctly to pass the 2025 test. You will fail the test if you answer nine of the 20 questions incorrectly.”

The new 2025 civic test is applicable to people who filed Form N-400 for naturalization after Oct. 20, 2025. Individuals who applied prior to this date will be administered the 2008 naturalization civics test, which requires applicants to correctly answer six out of 10 questions from a list of 100.

Some of the questions asked in the 2025 civics tests include the form of government in the United States, the number of amendments in the U.S. Constitution, explanation of rule of law, parts of the U.S. Congress, number of seats on the Supreme Court, the individual who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the war that ended slavery in the United States, and the name of an American Indian tribe, according to the test document.

There are special exemptions for lawful permanent residents aged 65 or older who have been residents for 20 or more years.

Such individuals need to study a set of 20 questions rather than the usual list of 128. Moreover, “you may also take the civics test in the language of your choice. The USCIS officer will ask you to answer 10 out of the 20 civics test questions with an asterisk. You must answer at least six out of 10 questions (or 60 percent) correctly to pass the 2025 version of the civics test,” the document said.

Official Language Test

The language test for naturalization requires that the applicant “demonstrate an understanding of the English language, including the ability to read, write, and speak basic English,” according to the USCIS.

Speaking and understanding skills will be determined by a USCIS officer during the eligibility interview.

In the reading test, an applicant has to read aloud one out of three sentences provided to demonstrate their ability. And for writing, they must write one out of three given sentences accurately.

On March 1, Trump signed a presidential action that designated English as the official language of the United States.

“From the founding of our Republic, English has been used as our national language. Our Nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English,” Trump wrote.

“It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States. A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.”

On Feb. 28, before the Trump action, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) criticized the move, arguing it contradicts the nation’s founding principles and marginalizes millions of Americans.

“America is stronger when we embrace multilingualism. Over 350 languages are spoken in the U.S., expanding our global influence in trade, diplomacy, and business. Bilingual and multilingual individuals give our economy a competitive edge and strengthen our communities,” Roman Palomares, LULAC national president, said.

“Limiting language access is not just exclusionary—it harms our future. We must uplift, not restrict, the diversity that has made this nation a global leader.”

According to a March 17 report from Pew Research Center, 82 percent of U.S. adults in a survey said it was “extremely/very” or “somewhat” important to make English the official language of the United States.

Responses were split along political lines. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning individuals, 73 percent said it was “extremely/very” important for English to be a national language, compared to just 32 percent among Democrats and Democrat-leaning individuals.

The China-Japan spat now seems to be accelerating by the day, with Tokyo warning in the aftermath of Tuesday’s dual use export curb announcement by China’s commerce ministry that the fresh action could “impact more than 40% of Chinese exports to Japan” – according to Bloomberg.

In unveiling its fresh punitive measures Tuesday, marking a serious escalation, a Chinese government spokesperson railed against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s “erroneous” comments from last November where she suggested her forces could defend Taiwan in a future invasion by China.

“These comments constitute a crude interference in China’s internal affairs, seriously violate the one-China principle and are extremely harmful in nature and impact,” the statement said, followed by a warning that any entity or individual which violates the export ban will be held legally accountable. These new controls on ‘military-civilian’ dual use are likely to affect shipments of semiconductors and rare earth materials to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and defense industry firms – which is without doubt the intent, and signals that greater punishment and damage could be further implemented at any time.

Within hours of Beijing unveiling these measures, Masaaki Kanai, secretary general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, had “strongly protested and demanded the withdrawal of these measures.”

Anadolu Agency

Kanai conveyed the formal diplomatic protest to the Chinese embassy’s deputy chief of mission in Tokyo, Shi Yong. Kanai said the measures “deviate significantly from international practice, is absolutely unacceptable and deeply regrettable.”

But Beijing isn’t backing down, also after its sought-for formal retraction and apology from Takaichi has failed to materialize. Instead, Japan is bracing for continued incremental punitive measures. The latest includes China’s Commerce Ministry further announcing an anti-dumping probe into Japan Dichlorosilane imports. According to the new statement and press release:

China’s Ministry of Commerce announced on Wednesday that it has initiated an anti-dumping investigation into imports of dichlorosilane originating from Japan. Dichlorosilane is a chemical critical to the manufacture of semiconductor chips.

The investigation is not scheduled to conclude until January next year, and could be extended for an additional six months if deemed necessary, according to a ministry statement. On Tuesday, the ministry announced control measures on the export of dual-use items to Japan.

According to a ministry spokesperson, the investigation was initiated after requests by domestic manufacturers in China.

“The preliminary evidence submitted by the applicant indicates that from 2022 to 2024, the volume of dichlorosilane imported from Japan showed an overall increasing trend, with its cumulative price decline reaching 31 percent,” the spokesperson said.

But some analysts consider that there still a chance for de-escalation and walk-back, with Global risk consultancy Teneo describing that the lack of clarity in China’s announcement may be deliberate.

“The brief statement by China’s commerce ministry is vague, and the impact of the new measures could range from almost entirely symbolic to highly disruptive,” the consultancy said. “By triggering concern in Japan about the ongoing availability of critical Chinese industrial inputs, the announcement puts immediate pressure on Takaichi to offer concessions,” Teneo added.

“A plausible scenario is that the commerce ministry initially rejects a small handful of license applications, creating only minor supply-chain disruption but signaling potential for broader damage in future unless Tokyo takes conciliatory action.”

Bloomberg noted overnight that shares tied to rare earths rose across Asia-Pacific markets within the day after the announcement. It reviews that Tokyo trading, Toyo Engineering Corp – which develops technology to extract rare earths from the seabed – surged 20%. And Cerium producer Daiichi Kigenso Kagaku-Kogyo Co jumped as much as 27%. Australian-based companies surged as well, with Lynas Rare Earths Ltd climbing as much as 16%, its biggest gain since July, and Australian Strategic Materials Ltd advancing nearly 10%.

On Wednesday a fresh Bloomberg headline further noted: “The Japan-China squabble is causing some jitters after a strong start to the year for the region’s stocks.” It added: “The rally had also started to show signs of overheating. The 14-day relative strength index for the MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed above 70 this week, entering technical overbought territory for the first time since early October.”

Despite the open question of just how the export controls will be implemented, China Daily has indeed confirmed that the restrictions will extend to rare earth-related products.

China had already been steadily retaliating through measures related to curbing trade, cultural exchanges, and tourism – coupled with threats of more punitive action to come. There have lately been some serious military ‘close calls’ as well.

While today’s ADP report was a solid rebound from the worst monthly report in years (even if it missed expectations due to a sudden plunge in California payrolls), the same could not be said for the JOLTS job opening report that followed less than two hours later, and which was another epic disaster: for the month of November (recall JOLTS lags the payrolls report by a month), the US had only 7.146 million job openings, a huge drop from the 7.670 million in October (which was conveniently revised lower to 7.449 million) and the lowest since September 2024.

The November print was also a 3+ sigma miss to expectations and came in below the lowest estimate (that of TD Securities).

According to the BLS, the number of job openings decreased in accommodation and food services (-148,000); transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-108,000); and wholesale trade (-63,000). Job openings increased in construction (+90,000).

But the most notable drop by far, was that in government, where the number of workers collapsed to the lowest level since early 2021.

Meanwhile, after four years of the US labor market dodging the bullet, its luck has finally run out because while until just a few months ago, the labor market was supply-constrained, with more job openings than unemployed workers in the US, in November we are finally back to sharply demand constrained, with 685k fewer job openings than unemployed workers, the most since March 2021...

… and translating into a 0.9 ratio of job openings to unemployed workers, the first sub-1.0x print in 4 years.

While the job openings data was ugly and potentially another harbinger of the coming jobs recession – things were even uglier below the surface, as the number of new hires tumbled by 253K – the biggest one month drrop since June 2024 – to 5.1156MM the lowest since June 2024.

The only silver lining is that the number of people quitting their jobs – also known as the take this job and shove it indicator – rebounded by almost 200K, to 3.161MM, from 2.994MM.

Putting it all together, despite a rather solid ADP print earlier, today’s JOLTS report was quite terrible and certainly enough to ensure that Fed rate cuts continue (assuming no dramatic improvement in Friday’s job report). The flip side, of course, is that this report took place when the government was still mostly shut down, so our advice would be to just ignore everything since it is not indicative of the current state of the US economy after it reopened shortly after Democrats captiulated without achieving anything. 

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The Second World War had ended and the Cold War had already begun. The public was exhausted from grand ideological struggles. The notion that the United States would embark on yet another global campaign seemed implausible. And yet, there was Harry Truman in 1948 warning about the new threat: the Russians.

The Republican Party was in no mood for this. The sense was captured by Senator Robert Taft’s book “A Foreign Policy for Americans” (1951). It passionately argued that America needed to focus on rebuilding this country rather than unleash global military campaigns.

The same year, a new intellectual star emerged on the scene. He was William F. Buckley, Jr., a new graduate of Yale University. His debut book left a huge impression: “God and Man at Yale.” Even now, it is a wonderful read, and a reminder that campus struggles over politics, with the establishment forever tilting left, is nothing new. Eventually, he would take a position as the intellectual head of what came to be called American conservatism.

Buckley’s book documented two main sectors of teaching on campus: economics and religion. In economics, the bias was always toward top-down planning. Keynesian economics was the rage at the time, and it enticed a generation of intellectuals to believe they managed macroeconomics the way engineers built and managed large machinery. Buckley, for his part, was a partisan of the free market and classical economics.

Then there was the matter of religious faith. Then as now, it was rather unfashionable to be a theist on campus. As a devout Catholic, Buckley revealed how people of faith are made to feel wholly excluded in the upper reaches of campus culture. They are second-class citizens while a sniffy atheism dominated the culture of the campus.

“I myself believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world,” he wrote in his most famous passage.

“I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.”

The critical language here is to pit individualism against collectivism. Here is where the language that would dominate the Cold War was mapped out. In Buckley’s view, this was a battle of systems: one which centered on individual rights and action and one which treated the human population as a uniform blob to be pushed and molded by the state.

Buckley was of course referencing the economic model of the Soviet Union, WWII allies with the United States against Germany and Japan that would become the foe of focus for the next 40 years. It so happened that the Soviets also backed an official policy of atheism that would be consistent with Marxian philosophical postulates.

This language of individualism versus collectivism was not unique to Buckley (the sources were likely Ayn Rand and Buckley’s friend Frank Chodorov) but it was he who popularized it on the right side of the political spectrum. Such language stuck for decades.

I can see the attraction of methodological individualism. Only individuals think and act. Only individuals have rights under law. Groupthink and group action are inconsistent with the idea of freedom. Every central plan focused on the status of whole groups overriding individual choice. There is always something wrong with a policy that purports to act on behalf of whole groups as if individual minds are not at work: workers, investors, the rich, the poor, women, blacks, and so on. Such aggregate thinking can be dangerous.

That said, there are grave limits associated with a strict philosophical individualism. We all come from families and seek to build them. We associate with groups in the form of civic community and religious associations. We have friend groups, family responsibilities, loyalties to others in commerce and faith, and live in nations with traditions and aspirations.

Freedom requires community. It lives as part of it. The deployment of a raw individualism ignores these complexities.

Indeed, a peculiar feature of Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged” (1957) is how she posits a society made up of only adult individual actors, mostly unmarried, none with children, none with elderly parents who need care, none with disabled people who need attention, and none who are part of some religious group to which they feel an attachment. Marriage itself comes across as oppressive, something to escape, while child-rearing makes no appearance at all.

The book is a fascinating and sometimes inspiring read but once you see these holes in the narrative, you cannot unsee them. Yes, it is a book about individualism but it is not a book about society as we know it in real life. The oversight here is undoubtedly deliberate: a philosophy of strict individualist ethic will necessarily pretend as if a whole class of normal human struggles simply do not exist.

This is why the term individualism is too limited to describe how freedom works. It was a fine slogan for Cold War purposes but it does not work as a defense of the kind of society in which we want to live.

The new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani stated in his inaugural address that he would reject the “frigidity of individualism” for the “warmth of collectivism.” His comment revived this old language and led to a flurry of memes about the terrible history of communist and socialist experiments. He got a grilling for that remark but what troubles me most is the language here.

The alternative to collectivism is not frigid individualism but the infinitely complex social arrangements that come with freedom itself, which involves not just individuals but a multiplicity of spontaneously evolved community relationships and mutual responsibilities. Indeed, in the vision of Alexis de Tocqueville, that is the essence of what America is all about.

The sociologist Robert Nisbet explained further that a freedom that depends solely on individualism is not likely to survive an assault by the state and other powerful institutions. Rather, we need what are called mediating institutions to serve as a kind of bulwark against the encroachments of power. We need schools, churches, civic relationships, coherent communities, robust families, as well as a thriving commercial sector that combines heroic individuals and group relationships.

Nisbet warned that individualism without community leads to alienation, psychological insecurity, and the growth of an overweening state—precisely the opposite of genuine liberty. “It is impossible to understand the massive concentrations of political power in the twentieth-century … unless we see the close relationship that prevailed … between individualism and State power.”

“The abstract, autonomous individual does not exist nor can he ever exist,” he wrote. “True individuality thrives within social relationships and groups, not in a social vacuum.”

It’s even more than what he says. The individual inhabits a vast ocean of social mores, traditions, deep philosophical assumptions, technologies, cultural contexts, and presumptions about law and the expectations of others, and an entire world around us that far outstrips our individual capacity to comprehend it all. There is no such thing as an isolated individual actor.

This is why I offer this point of caution. Just because Mamdani rejects something does not mean his opponents should embrace it. Buckley’s use of the term individualism worked in his time as a way of framing up existing debates. But it does not work to describe what a free society requires to retain its freedom. Yes, we need heroic individuals but they come from somewhere and leave something behind that is necessarily larger than the individual.

There is no warmth in collectivism but neither does it exist in atomized individualism as such. It is community we are going for—and that includes the nation as an entity too—one that is naturally evolves from a society of aspirational people who appreciate acting as, and on behalf of, both individuals and as part of groups.

Math skills are a foundational input into modern economies. They support innovation, productivity, and long-term competitiveness. As technology and data-driven work become more central, countries with stronger math outcomes often gain an edge.

This infographic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, ranks countries by their average math scores among 15–16 year-olds.

The data for this visualization comes from the OECD’s PISA 2022 assessment. PISA measures how well students can apply math knowledge to practical problems, offering a global comparison of education systems.

Scores typically range from below 400 to above 600. Top performers in this dataset score well above the OECD average of 472.

East Asia Sets the Global Benchmark

Singapore ranks first with an average math score of 575.

Macau (SAR), Taiwan, Hong Kong (SAR), Japan, and South Korea also appear near the top of the ranking. These economies have consistently prioritized math education through rigorous programs and high academic expectations.

Rank
Country
Average PISA Score
1
🇸🇬 Singapore
575
2
🇲🇴 Macau
552
3
🇹🇼 Taiwan
547
4
🇭🇰 Hong Kong
540
5
🇯🇵 Japan
536
6
🇰🇷 South Korea
527
7
🇪🇪 Estonia
510
8
🇨🇭 Switzerland
508
9
🇨🇦 Canada
497
10
🇳🇱 Netherlands
493
11
🇮🇪 Ireland
492
12
🇧🇪 Belgium
489
13
🇩🇰 Denmark
489
14
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
489
15
🇵🇱 Poland
489
16
🇦🇺 Australia
487
17
🇦🇹 Austria
487
18
🇨🇿 Czech Republic
487
19
🇸🇮 Slovenia
485
20
🇫🇮 Finland
484
21
🇱🇻 Latvia
483
22
🇸🇪 Sweden
482
23
🇳🇿 New Zealand
479
24
🇩🇪 Germany
475
25
🇱🇹 Lithuania
475
26
🇫🇷 France
474
27
🇪🇸 Spain
473
28
🇭🇺 Hungary
473
29
🇵🇹 Portugal
472
 
🌐 OECD average
472
30
🇮🇹 Italy
471
31
🇳🇴 Norway
468
32
🇲🇹 Malta
466
33
🇺🇸 U.S.
465
34
🇸🇰 Slovakia
464
35
🇭🇷 Croatia
463

Europe’s Strong, Steady Performers

Several European countries cluster just above or around the 500 mark. Estonia leads the region, followed closely by Switzerland and the Netherlands. Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, and Poland also post solid results.

How North America Compares

Canada ranks ninth overall with a score of 497, standing out as one of the strongest performers outside East Asia and Europe. The United States ranks lower at 465, below the OECD average.

Countries from Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America are absent from the list, reflecting long-standing gaps in educational performance across regions.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Ranked: Productivity of the World’s Largest 30 Economies (2005-2025) on Voronoi, the app from Visual Capitalist.