The Washington Post, which still runs that increasingly self-parodying banner “democracy dies in darkness,” has an article on the new US citizenship test, which the Trump administration has re-designed to make it longer and harder. From here on out, every journalist who happens to get an interview with any member of the administration, or, hell, with any politician, should be obligated to ask that person at least three of these questions. To see if they get them right.

Back in the 1990s, during the heyday of communitarianism, Katha Pollitt ran a wonderful little experiment, where she asked leading academic communitarians what sort of community activities they had engaged in during the previous month or so. The results were clarifying.

Beyond the injustice of requiring naturalized citizens to know more about US history and politics than most native-born citizens do, I was irritated by the questions and alleged answers on the examination. And by the fact that the writers of the article either don’t know or are too timid to say what is wrong with these questions and answers. Democracy dying in darkness and all.

At least two questions, as worded, had answers that were simply wrong.

One question asks, “Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?” The stipulated answer is Thomas Jefferson, but of course, Jefferson only drafted the Declaration. Its final version was a group effort.

Another question asks, “When did all women get the right to vote?” The stipulated answer, silently referencing the passage of the 19th Amendment, is 1920, but of course all women didn’t get the right to vote until 1965, with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Not to mention that there is still a tremendous variation among states and localities as to whether immigrant non-citizens can vote, which would only further complicate the answer to the question. Not all women, and so forth.

Another question asks, “Why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War?” In reading the question, with its assumptions of mono-causality and its ambiguity around that “why” (does “why” mean stated explanation? stated legal justification? stated political rationale? or does that mean unstated causal explanation?), I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of military historians suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. The stipulated correct answer is “To force the Iraqi military from Kuwait,” but just in case you thought there might have been more than one reason or cause for the war, the US government now makes sure you’re forced to deny that larger global security and imperial interests, or oil, or anything else, had anything to do with it.

Last, another question asks, “James Madison is famous for many things. Name one.” My first thought was, who cares? Then, reading the answers, and realizing that the only possibly correct one was that he was president during the War of 1812, I thought, I can think of a few more important reasons as to why people should know who James Madison was.

Anyway, if you’re a journalist reading this, and if you ever get access to a member of the administration or any politician who supports these changes to the test, make them answer some of these questions and see how many of them they get right.