The reading and writing test
The civics questions get all the attention, but there's a second part of the interview people forget about until they're sitting in the chair: a quick check that you can read and write basic English. The good news — it's genuinely short, and it's built to be passable. You don't need perfect grammar, just enough to show you can get by.
Reading: one sentence, out loud
The officer shows you up to three sentences and asks you to read them aloud. You only have to read one of the three correctly to pass. "Correctly" is forgiving: you can't skip a word that changes the meaning, but small pronunciation slips are fine.
The sentences are built from a fixed reading vocabulary — words like president, citizens, country, and vote — on simple civics and history topics. Drilling that word list is most of the battle.
Writing: one sentence, down on paper
Same idea, in reverse. The officer reads a sentence aloud and you write what you hear. Again, one correct out of up to three passes you.
Spelling just has to be close enough to be understood. A missing capital letter or a small typo usually won't sink you — but leaving out a word, or writing something different from what was said, will. The dictation comes from a published writing vocabulary list, so practice with that, not random sentences.
How to actually prepare
Don't overthink this, but don't skip it either. Three things help more than anything else: read the official reading vocabulary out loud until the words feel automatic, practice writing full sentences from dictation instead of copying them, and get comfortable with U.S. date formats and capital letters.
Twenty minutes, a few times, is usually enough. The people who fail this part almost always failed to prepare for it at all — simply because nobody told them it existed.
What it is not
It's not an essay, and it's not a spelling bee. There's no grammar quiz and no "write a paragraph about yourself." If you can read a line like "Citizens can vote" and write "The President lives in the White House" when it's read to you, you're already there.
If reading and writing English is genuinely hard for you, read the exemptions guide next — depending on your age and how long you've held your green card, you may be able to skip the English requirement entirely.