If you’ve ever wondered what rules the home office set in relation to building the question bank for the Life in the UK Test then we have some clues from the contact between the Home Office and Learn Direct which was released following a freedom of information request. The interesting bits about the question bank are in Schedule 1B:
- The contractor shall maintain a bank of a minimum of 300 approved questions
- Each question in the question bank shall remain active for a maximum of 3 years or such longer term as shall be agreed by the Parties in writing.
- No question shall be exposed for more than 6 consecutive months
- The question bank shall be refreshed very 3 years (or at such other frequency as shall be agreed by the Parties in writing) and this shall be governed by a change note issued by the Authority to scope and fund the project
- A test shall contain 24 questions
- The test bank shall contain the following minimum number of tests for each region region: England 20, Scotland 10, Wales 10 and Northern Ireland 10.
- Where the authority reports out of date content to the contractor, or request the withdrawl of specific questions, the Contractor will ensure the withdrawal of the affected questions and tests within 5 working days
- Any questions or tests that the Contractor deem to be under performing shall be removed within 5 working days of the analysis being complete. Question performance shall be judged on the basis of facility and discrimination.
Source: The contract for the Life in the UK test between the Home Office and Learndirect Ltd from 1 May 2013 to 31 March 2016 here.