Life in the UK test study guide: A modern, thriving society

Chapter 4 is about the UK as it is today. It covers the people, their faiths, their holidays, their sport and their arts. It is the second longest chapter in the handbook.

Most of the questions are about names, dates and numbers. You do not need an opinion about any of it. You need to know who did what, and when.

This guide follows the order of the chapter. Read one section, then look away and try to say the facts back to yourself.

The people of the UK

The government counts the population with a survey called the census. Every household has to fill it in.

• The first census was taken in 1801.
• One has been taken every ten years since then.
• The only miss was 1941, because the Second World War was being fought.
• The detailed answers stay private for 100 years.

The census asks about age, place of birth, jobs, health and much more. Local services are planned from the results.

The population has grown a great deal.

The four countries do not hold equal shares of that total.

Two things have made the population grow quickly in recent years. People have moved to the UK from other countries. People are also living longer than before.

That second point has a name. The UK has an ageing population. More people are reaching old age than in the past. That means more people drawing a pension and using health services.

Religion in the UK

The law says everyone may follow a religion, or no religion at all. That is their own choice.

The 2011 census asked people what they believed.

Other faiths practised in the UK include Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism.

The Church of England

England has an established church. That means one church has an official link with the state. In England that church is the Church of England. It is also called the Anglican Church.

• It came into existence during the Reformation, in the 1530s.
• The monarch is the head of the Church of England.
• The Archbishop of Canterbury is its spiritual leader.
• The monarch appoints the Archbishop on the advice of the Prime Minister.
• Senior bishops sit in the House of Lords.

The Church of Scotland

The Church of Scotland is the national church of Scotland. It is a Presbyterian church. It is governed by ministers and elders rather than by bishops.

Its chief officer is the Moderator of the General Assembly. The Moderator serves for one year at a time.

The Anglican church in Scotland has a different name again. It is called the Episcopal Church.

Many other Christian groups are found across the UK. Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics all have churches here.

Patron saints, flags and emblems

Each of the four countries has its own patron saint and its own day.

The four days are celebrated everywhere. Only two of them are official holidays. Those are in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Union Flag

The flag of the UK is the Union Flag. It is often called the Union Jack.

It is made of three crosses laid on top of each other.

• The cross of St George, a red upright cross on a white background, for England.
• The cross of St Andrew, a white diagonal cross on a blue background, for Scotland.
• The cross of St Patrick, a red diagonal cross on a white background, for Northern Ireland.

Wales is not on the flag. When the flag was first made, Wales was already joined to England.

Each country also has a plant as its emblem.

The national anthem of the UK is God Save the King. It is sung at state occasions and before some sporting events.

The year of festivals and holidays

Public holidays are often called bank holidays. Most of them fall on a Monday.

Christian festivals

• Christmas Day, 25 December, celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.
• Boxing Day, 26 December, is the day after, and is also a holiday.
• Easter remembers the death of Jesus Christ and his rising from the dead.
• Good Friday and Easter Monday are both public holidays.
• Lent is the 40 days before Easter, when some people give something up.
• Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent starts. People eat pancakes.

Other days in the year

• New Year's Day, 1 January, is a holiday across the UK.
• Hogmanay is the Scottish celebration of New Year. In some parts of Scotland it matters more than Christmas.
• People sing Auld Lang Syne at midnight on New Year's Eve.
• Valentine's Day, 14 February, is for sending cards to someone you love. The cards are often not signed.
• April Fool's Day, 1 April, is for playing jokes. The jokes stop at midday.
• Mothering Sunday falls three weeks before Easter.
• Father's Day is the third Sunday in June.
• Halloween, 31 October, is an old festival. Children dress up and visit houses.
• Bonfire Night, 5 November, remembers a failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.
• Remembrance Day, 11 November, remembers those who died fighting for the UK and its allies. People wear a poppy.

Festivals of other faiths

The handbook names four.

Sport

Sport matters a great deal in the UK. Several sports began here, including cricket, golf, tennis and rugby.

London has hosted the Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948 and 2012. The Olympic Park for the 2012 Games was built at Stratford, in east London.

The handbook names many sportspeople. These come up often.

The big competitions

• Football. England won the World Cup in 1966.
• Cricket. England and Australia play for the Ashes.
• Rugby. The game began at Rugby School in England in the early nineteenth century. Six teams play in the Six Nations Championship: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy.
• Golf. The modern game developed in Scotland, at St Andrews. The Open Championship is the oldest golf competition in the world, first played in 1860.
• Tennis. The Wimbledon Championships is the oldest tennis competition in the world. It is played on grass in London.
• Horse racing. Royal Ascot and the Grand National are the best known events.

Music

Music of every kind is played in the UK. The handbook starts with classical music.

The Proms are an eight-week season of classical concerts in the summer. The BBC has organised them since 1927. The concerts are held in several venues. The best known one is the Royal Albert Hall in London. The Last Night of the Proms is the most famous evening.

These composers appear in the chapter.

Popular music matters too. British bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones became famous around the world in the 1960s. Punk arrived in the late 1970s, through bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Three awards and two festivals are named in the handbook.

• The Mercury Music Prize rewards the best album from the UK and Ireland.
• The Brit Awards are organised by the British Phonographic Industry.
• Glastonbury is one of the best-known outdoor music festivals.
• The National Eisteddfod of Wales is a yearly festival of Welsh music, literature and performance.

Theatre and comedy

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. He worked at the Globe theatre in London. He wrote plays such as Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. He also wrote poems, including sonnets.

The line To be or not to be comes from Hamlet.

The theatre district of London is the West End. It is often called Theatreland.

• Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote musicals including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
• Gilbert and Sullivan wrote comic operas. Gilbert wrote the words and Sullivan wrote the music. HMS Pinafore and The Mikado are two of them.
• The Edinburgh Festival takes place every summer. The Fringe is the part with hundreds of shows by professional and amateur performers.
• The Laurence Olivier Awards celebrate excellent work in the theatre. Sir Laurence Olivier was one of the best-known actors of the twentieth century.

Two traditions are worth remembering.

Pantomime is performed around Christmas. It is based on a fairy tale. There is usually a comic dame played by a man, and the audience shouts out to the actors.

Punch and Judy is a puppet show. It is often seen at the seaside.

Art and architecture

The handbook names a number of British artists.

The Turner Prize celebrates contemporary art.

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in London holds a large collection of Western European paintings. Other well-known galleries include the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.

Architects

The Houses of Parliament were built in the nineteenth century, in the Gothic revival style. That style copies the churches and castles of the Middle Ages.

Lancelot Capability Brown was not an architect. He designed the landscaped grounds of country houses.

Fashion and design

British design covers furniture, pottery, interiors and clothes.

Literature

The Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded for the best fiction novel of the year. It has been given since 1968. Hilary Mantel and Ian McEwan have both won it.

These novelists are named in the handbook.

Poets

Robert Burns is the national poet of Scotland. He is known as the Bard and wrote in the Scots language. Burns Night is held on 25 January. Haggis is served and his poems are read aloud.

William Wordsworth wrote The Daffodils, a poem inspired by the Lake District. Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet who wrote Under Milk Wood. Sir Walter Scott wrote Ivanhoe and Rob Roy.

Poets' Corner is in Westminster Abbey in London. Many famous writers are buried or remembered there.

Film and television

Films were first shown to the public in the UK in 1896. Screenings became popular very quickly.

British films helped keep people's spirits up during the Second World War. The industry had new success in the 1990s, with films such as The Full Monty and Bridget Jones's Diary.

Dame Judi Dench and Sir Anthony Hopkins are among the best-known British actors. The BAFTAs are the British awards for film and television. They are presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Television

The BBC was first set up in 1922. Three facts about it come up often.

1. It is paid for by the television licence fee.
2. It is independent of the government.
3. Every household that watches or records television needs a licence, and you can be fined without one.

Long-running soap operas include Coronation Street and EastEnders.

Leisure and the outdoors

Gardening is popular. The Chelsea Flower Show is held in London every year. An allotment is a piece of land people rent to grow fruit and vegetables.

Famous gardens open to visitors include Sissinghurst in England, Bodnant Garden in Wales and Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland.

There are 15 national parks in England, Wales and Scotland. A national park is an area of protected countryside that everyone can visit. The first ones were set up in 1951.

The National Trust was founded in 1895. It is a charity, run with the help of thousands of volunteers. It preserves important buildings, coastline and countryside. The National Trust for Scotland does similar work in Scotland.

Most large museums and galleries let you see their permanent collection for free.

Food and drink

Each part of the UK has traditional dishes.

Haggis is made from a sheep's stomach filled with offal, suet, onions and oatmeal. An Ulster fry is a fried meal with bacon, eggs, sausage and soda bread. A Sunday roast is a family meal of roast meat and vegetables.

The rules in a pub

Pubs are a part of daily life, and the law about them is tested.

• You must be 18 to buy alcohol in a pub or a shop.
• A person aged 16 or 17 may drink beer, wine or cider with a meal in a restaurant, if an adult is with them.
• Someone under 18 may go into a pub if an adult is with them and the pub allows it, but they cannot drink alcohol.
• Pubs usually open from about 11am.
• The person who holds the pub's licence decides the opening hours.
• A pub must have a licence before it can sell alcohol.
• Night clubs usually stay open later than pubs.

Pets and animals

Many people in the UK keep a pet. Most say they do it for company. Dogs and cats are the most common pets.

Owning an animal brings duties with it.

• It is a criminal offence to be cruel to an animal or to neglect it.
• The owner pays for vaccinations and any medical treatment.
• An ill or injured animal should be taken to a vet.
• A dog in a public place must wear a collar showing the name and address of the owner.
• The owner must keep the dog under control and clear up any mess it makes.

The PDSA is a charity. It may help with veterinary treatment for owners on a low income.

Places of interest

The handbook lists places to visit across the four countries.

Legend says the giant Finn MacCool built the Giant's Causeway.

British inventions and discoveries

This section is a list of names. Learn who did what.

Two more facts are asked about often.

Dolly the sheep was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. The scientists worked at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh.

Concorde was a supersonic passenger aircraft. Britain and France developed it together.

Notable Britons

The chapter closes with people the handbook wants you to recognise. Group them by what they did.

Sport and adventure

• Mary Peters won Olympic gold in the pentathlon in 1972. She is from Northern Ireland.
• David Weir won six Paralympic gold medals in wheelchair racing.
• Ellie Simmonds is a Paralympic swimmer.
• Sir Francis Chichester sailed around the world alone in 1966 and 1967.
• Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was the first person to sail around the world alone without stopping.

Poets

• William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are all remembered as poets.
• Wilfred Owen is remembered above all for his poems about the First World War.

Art, design and building

• David Allan was a Scottish painter. He painted The Origin of Painting.
• Gertrude Jekyll designed gardens.
• Damien Hirst is a contemporary artist who won the Turner Prize.
• Dame Zaha Hadid and Lord Richard Rogers were architects.

Science and invention

• James Goodfellow was a Scottish inventor. He patented the personal identification number, the PIN used at cash machines, in 1966.