It shows you were willing to study up on the country you want to stay and are making some sort of an effort. If all the answers are in a book anyway, it's hardly rocket science to pass it....
Of course, but that defeats the object of it. Little Johnny Iaintgonnaintegrate can come in here, learn enough Engrish to pass the test, study the book and pass.
He can then go back into the community and basically not integrate in any way shape or form.
I don't necessarily have the answer for the problem of people who come to the UK and don't integrate, but I will say this..... our nextdoor neighbours are born and bred Brits and they choose not to integrate into the neighbourhood at all.
I think the UK should concentrate on getting the people it's got in it at the moment to obey the law of the land before they start trying to teach people pointless crap. Heck, one of the questions was how you went about getting into the Welsh Assembly or Westminster. One you had to make an appointment and the other you had to queue. Why do I need to know that?
Why does it matter?
I think they could have done far better by talking about proper cultural things about Britain because if I was from lets say..... Ethiopia and I'd never seen any British TV and had no idea about British people, then that book would have taught me very little of what I actually needed to integrate into British society. I think if there had been a chapter on British food which talked about traditional British food like roasts, fish and chips and so on then that would have been more helpful than how many children under the age of 16 have had sex with goats and other useless stats.
Luckily I'm white, have been watching British TV for 25+ years and have been on a forum with loads of Brits on it for almost 11 years so I integrate pretty well and most people don't even realise that I'm not from round here other than by looking at my last person, or the occasional person who is good with accents and notices the little bits of Aussie that show through in my voice.
