Medborgerskabsprøven Format and Pass Mark: 25 Questions, 20 to Pass

Medborgerskabsprøven is a short, fixed-format test: 25 multiple-choice questions with two or three options each, 30 minutes, no aids, and a pass with at least 20 correct. Every question comes from the published learning material, all questions carry equal weight, and the result is simply “passed” or “not passed”. This guide sets out the rules as the regulation states them, what happens in the room, and how to use the half-hour well.

BEK nr. 452 af 13/05/2024 §9 and §35; SIRI, Om Medborgerskabsprøven.

The regulation lists what the test must cover: everyday life and citizenship (associations, public libraries, taking part in working and leisure life); Danish society (the welfare state, the labour market and workplace culture, education, democracy and basic Danish values, Denmark and the world, geography); and Danish history, art and culture. The learning material turns those areas into 26 fact sheets, and the questions come from them — there are no current-affairs questions and no separate values block, unlike the citizenship test.

Twenty of twenty-five means you can miss five. Because there is no penalty for a wrong answer, a blank is simply a missed mark; always choose something. A blind guess is right a third of the time on a three-option question and half the time on a two-option one, but no one passes by guessing — the purpose of the rule is that you know four-fifths of the material cold.

Each paper carries the same worked example on its instruction page — a question about Denmark’s capital with three options — so the mechanics hold no surprises. One censor marks all the papers of a sitting, and the result is final once entered on the marking list.

Thirty minutes for 25 questions is 72 seconds each, which is generous for most questions — a large share are single facts such as a number, a year or a yes or no. The time pressure comes from reading: the paper is in Danish, and a candidate reading slowly can lose minutes on the longer stems about the welfare state or the labour market. Practise with official papers under the full 30 minutes until you finish with time to spare; then use the spare minutes to re-read the questions you marked as doubtful.

Most questions are single facts drawn from one sentence of the learning material: a number (179 members of the Folketing, 98 municipalities, five regions), a year (1849 for the Constitution, 1953 for its last change), a name (the first female prime minister), a place (the strait between Jutland and Funen) or a yes-or-no about a right or a rule (may a non-citizen form an association; is borrowing library books free). In our analysis of the 500 official questions, 37 have a year or a century as the answer. The rest test whether you know how Danish institutions work — who elects a union representative at a workplace, where you appeal a district-court decision, who holds judicial power. None asks for an opinion.

Because the questions are this concrete, the most efficient preparation is to read each fact sheet once for understanding and then drill the specific figures and names in it. A candidate who understands the welfare state in general but cannot say how many weeks of holiday the law gives (five) or what the most common full-time week is (37 hours) will lose marks that were there for the taking.

One pattern is real but should not change how you answer. In the three-option questions of the 20 official papers, the correct answer was C in 41.9% of cases, B in 32.2% and A in 25.9% — more than chance would give. It describes past papers only; SIRI can change it at any sitting, and it is no substitute for knowing the answer. If you truly cannot decide between two options, it costs nothing to know about, but it will not get anyone to 20.

The regulation says the paper’s Danish level is set with regard to the Danish requirement for permanent residence — and the basic requirement for permanent residence is Prøve i Dansk 2. In practice that means everyday written Danish: short sentences, common words and the institutional vocabulary of the learning material (folketing, kommune, fagforening, tillidsrepræsentant). The glossary at the back of the learning material explains the harder words, and the free MP3 version lets you hear the same text read aloud. If reading speed is your weak point, practise the official papers against the clock until 25 questions take you well under 30 minutes.

Bring your original ID — a Danish residence card, an alien’s or convention passport issued in Denmark, an EU/EEA or Swiss passport or approved ID card, or another country’s passport with a residence sticker. Photos and copies are refused, and so is a driving licence. Leave your phone and smartwatch as instructed; no aids are allowed unless the centre has approved them as special conditions. Our guide to the November 2026 sitting has an ID checker and the deadlines for asking SIRI to accept other ID.