I had my US Naturalization interview today. Good news: I passed! I will have my Oath-taking ceremony on December 1st. In hindsight, the interview was pretty quick and uneventful and nothing to be scared of. That didn't stop me from being nervous all weekend and this morning, though :-)

I thought I'd review my experience in case it's useful to others.

After showing up at the USCIS office, and getting through security, I stood in line 3 which was for N400 and I485 appointments. The attendant swiftly called everyone up, checked us in, and directed us to the second floor. I saw some sign indicating that N400 visitors were to go to the blue room and I485 people were to go to the green room - I have no idea what this referred to as there was absolutely no sign of a blue or green room anywhere. Instead I arrived at the second floor and found two waiting areas with seats, one on each side of the stairs. I had no idea which side I was supposed to sit and looked around for any indication for which seating area was blue or green, to no avail. Finally I picked a side at random and sat down. As it turns out, it makes no difference whatsoever which side you sit. Immigration officers come out from several different doors located on all sides of this waiting area, and call people's names. It was occasionally difficult to hear the names being called.

Finally my name was called, after waiting about 30 minutes. My officer was female and middle-aged. Not super-friendly, but not rude either. I was directed to her office, then she swore me in.

The interview was basically in two halves. The first half consisted of the officer reviewing my N400 application form - essentially asking me the questions on the form and making sure that my answers corresponded to the answers I had provided when I sent in the application. She asked to see my green card, my driving license, and my passports (current and expired passports). In the end, she never looked at the passports. She looked at the green card and tried to mentally calculate how long I had been a resident to make sure I had been a resident long enough. After going through the entire application in this question-and-answer format, she seemed satisfied that everything was in order, and moved on to the second half of the interview - the test!

The officer asked if I wanted to take the old or the new test. (I had this option based on my N400 application date.) I asked for the new test.

The English Test:
I was handed a piece of paper with 3 English sentences on it and asked to read aloud the first sentence. The sentence was "Where is the White House?" Then I was handed a different piece of paper and asked to write a sentence. The officer spoke the sentence to me first. The sentence was "The White House is in Washington, D.C."

Civics Questions:
The officer asked me 10 questions, all of which were written on a piece of paper. She just read them in order and checked them off as I answered. All 10 questions were from the new (revised) civics test. There's no guarantee you will be asked the same questions, you just need a day or two to memorize and practice the 100 questions. It's not rocket science ;-) 

1. What is an Amendment?
2. What is the supreme law of the land?
3. Who signs bills to become laws?
4. Who vetos bills?
5. What is the capital of this state?
6. What do we show loyalty to when we say the Pledge of Allegiance?
7. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?
8. Who was President during the Great Depression and World War II?
9. Who did the United States fight in World War II?
10. Name one US territory?

Think you can answer all of them correctly? I did.

Once the test was completed, we were almost done. The officer had me sign my name in three places on the N400 application. She then printed a sheet of paper with my personal details on it and asked me to review it for accuracy. Then she brought out the two photographs of myself that I had included with my application, and asked me to sign them. The photos were then stapled to the sheet of paper with my personal details, and I assume this is then sent to another officer to prepare the actual Certificate of Naturalization. She handed me another piece of paper showing that I had passed the test and that I was being recommended for naturalization. I could keep this. Finally, she gave me yet another piece of paper which was my appointment letter to attend the oath-taking ceremony.

So that's it... 12 days to go until I recite the Oath and receive my Certificate of Naturalization.