US Citizenship Writing Test: the Official Word List and 30 Dictation Sentences

How the writing test works

In the citizenship writing test the USCIS officer reads a sentence aloud and you write it down. You get up to three sentences and you need to write one correctly. Per the USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 12, Part E, Chapter 2, you must write one sentence out of three "in a manner that the officer understands", and once you do, the officer stops the test. Spelling, capital letters and punctuation mistakes do not fail you unless they hide the meaning, and numbers may be written as words or as digits. What does fail a sentence: writing a different sentence or different words, abbreviating a dictated word, writing nothing or only one or two isolated words, or writing something completely illegible. USCIS does not publish the test sentences. It publishes the words they come from: the Writing Vocabulary for the Naturalization Test (rev. 08/08), 75 entries in eight categories by our count of the PDF. Below are the whole list, 30 dictation sentences written by TalkDrill with only those words, worked examples of what passes, and a routine for practising at normal speaking speed.

The official writing word list, by category

This is the complete list as printed on the USCIS PDF Writing Vocabulary for the Naturalization Test (rev. 08/08), downloaded and checked on 21 October 2026. The USCIS Study for the Test page lists it with the other English and civics materials. The interview and test page says the content "focuses on civics and history topics". The right-hand column is our note, not USCIS wording.

Seventy-five entries is a small list, and many of them are short, everyday words. In our judgement the words most likely to cause trouble are few and predictable: February, Senators, Independence, Thanksgiving, Delaware, Columbus, Washington, capital and citizens. If you can write those nine from dictation without looking, the rest is practice at speed.

What the officer forgives, and what fails

The Policy Manual is unusually precise about the writing sample. This table sets its wording against common slips.

Worked examples: one sentence, six attempts

The dictated sentence is "Lincoln was President during the Civil War." The six attempts were written by TalkDrill to show how the rule applies; they are not real applicants' papers. The officer decides at the interview; the last column is our reading of the Policy Manual.

Two lessons follow. Write every word you heard, even if you are unsure of the spelling, because a misspelt word is forgiven and a missing word may not be. And never shorten anything: the abbreviation rule is the fail condition that writing fast is most likely to trigger.

30 dictation sentences in sets of three

Every word in every sentence is on the official writing list; we checked each one against the PDF. Every sentence states a true fact, and several repeat answers from the official civics lists, so the practice doubles as civics revision. The sentences were written by TalkDrill and are not the sentences used by USCIS.

How to use them: have someone read a set to you at normal speaking speed, one sentence at a time, saying each sentence once. Write it, then check it against the table. Mark only what the Policy Manual cares about: is every content word there, is anything abbreviated, could a stranger read it? Spelling comes second.

Set 1: The first Presidents

Set 2: Washington

Set 3: The capital and Congress

Set 4: Numbers

Set 5: Citizens and freedom

Set 6: History and the flag

Set 7: The states

Set 8: Neighbours and the first holiday

Set 9: Spring and summer holidays

Set 10: Autumn holidays

Numbers appear in two sentences, written both ways so you can see that either form is accepted. If someone dictates "one hundred", writing "100" is fine; the Policy Manual says so in as many words.

How the reading and writing lists fit together

Put the two official PDFs side by side and a pattern appears. The reading list has question words and question-shaped verbs ("elects", "do/does", "meet"). The writing list has no question words, adds months and place names, and has statement-shaped verbs ("elect", "meets"). In other words, the reading list is built for questions and the writing list for the answers. That is our reading of the lists, not a statement by USCIS about how the forms are put together, but it gives you the most efficient way to practise: read a question from our reading page, then write its answer from this page.

Saying the answer aloud before you write it adds a third skill. The officer judges your speaking throughout the interview, and a full-sentence answer is exactly what the N-400 interview questions page trains.

Spelling traps by first language

Your first language shapes your spelling mistakes as much as your accent. The table names the words on the official list where each pattern shows up. These are features of each language and its script, not statistics about applicants. Remember the standard: most of these errors are forgiven if the officer can still read the word, so the aim is to remove the few that could change a word into another word.

Our first-language guides cover the interview English as well as the spelling: Spanish speakers, Hindi, Gujarati and Punjabi speakers, and Tagalog, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Arabic speakers.

A 10-minute dictation routine

This is our routine. Ten minutes a day, one set per day, covers all 30 sentences in ten days. Plan on two rounds, the second in a random order.

1. Get a voice. A family member or friend reads each sentence once, at the speed they would use on the phone. If you practise alone, record yourself reading tomorrow's set today, on your phone, and play it back tomorrow so you hear it fresh.
2. Listen to the whole sentence before you write. Then write it in one go. Do not stop in the middle to fix a spelling; come back at the end.
3. Check in this order. Every content word there? Nothing abbreviated? Readable by a stranger? Only then spelling, capitals and the full stop.
4. Write the nine hard words. February, Senators, Independence, Thanksgiving, Delaware, Columbus, Washington, capital, citizens. Twice each, from memory.
5. Say one answer aloud. Pick one sentence and use it as the answer to a question: "Who was the first President? Washington was the first President." Speaking in full sentences is what the officer judges all through the interview.

Listening matters as much as spelling here: you cannot write a sentence you did not catch. The English listening practice quiz trains your ear for natural speed, and the TalkDrill AI mock interview asks a question, listens to your answer and follows up, so you get used to an officer's pace. The eight-week roadmap places the dictation inside a full study plan.

If you fail the writing test. Per the USCIS interview and test page, you are retested only on the portion you failed, between 60 and 90 days after your first interview, and the Policy Manual says the officer must use different test forms. Our results and retest page explains what happens after that.

Sources for this page. The writing vocabulary PDF (rev. 08/08), the reading vocabulary PDF (rev. 08/08), the Policy Manual chapter on English and civics testing (current as of 2 October 2026) and the Naturalization Interview and Test page (last reviewed 31 October 2025), all read on 21 October 2026. If any of them changes, the official page wins over this one.