Citizenship Exam Prep
Three of the 33 Einbürgerungstest questions come from your Bundesland. What they ask, the capitals and parliaments of all 16 states, and how to study them.
The Einbürgerungstest has 33 multiple-choice questions, and you need 17 correct to pass. Thirty come from a catalogue of 300 general questions. The other three come from your Bundesland, drawn from a set of just ten questions published for each of Germany's 16 states.
Do the maths. To cover the 30 general questions you need to know 300. To cover the three state questions you need to know ten. Per question, the state set is the cheapest part of the test to master. Yet many candidates barely look at it.
The ten questions for each state follow a similar pattern. Expect questions on:
Most state parliaments are called a Landtag and most heads of government are a Ministerpräsident or Ministerpräsidentin. The exceptions are the three city-states, and they are a favourite source of trick options.
Notice the pattern in the "not" entries. In several states the capital is not the biggest or best-known city, and the wrong options are chosen to exploit that.
The biggest city is not always the capital. Frankfurt, Cologne, Leipzig and Rostock are all wrong answers that look right.
City-states use different names. If you live in Berlin, Hamburg or Bremen and you answer "Landtag" or "Ministerpräsident", you will be marked wrong.
Federal versus state. A general question may ask about the Bundestag or the Federal Chancellor. A state question asks about your Landtag and your state government. Read which level the question is about before answering.
Similar coats of arms. Several states use lions, eagles or similar colours. Look at the details of your own until you could pick it out of a lineup.
Voting age. Many states allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections, but not all do, and the rules for state elections can differ again. Learn the answer for your state from the official catalogue rather than assuming the federal rule applies.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) publishes the entire catalogue: the 300 general questions and all 16 sets of state questions. The test uses only questions from that catalogue. Study from the official set, or from material based on it, and make sure it is the current version.
That is around twenty minutes of work in total for three marks you will almost certainly get. Spend the rest of your time on the general catalogue, where the real effort lies. Our four-week study plan and full Einbürgerungstest guide cover that part.
The test is in German, and so are the answer options. Translations help you understand a question the first time, but on the day you need to recognise Landtag, Landeshauptstadt, Wappen and Ministerpräsident instantly. Use a translation for the first read, then practise your ten state questions only in German. Because the set is so small, this is the easiest part of the catalogue to move fully into German, and it builds confidence for the rest.
The state questions you get are tied to where you live and take the test. If you move to a different Bundesland while preparing, switch to the new state's ten questions and confirm with the test centre which set applies when you register.
With 17 of 33 needed to pass, three secure state questions make a real difference. They take an afternoon to learn and a few minutes a week to keep. Learn yours, watch for the capital-city and city-state traps, and move on.
Stika Studio builds CivicPass, a citizenship exam prep app with the full Einbürgerungstest catalogue, including every Bundesland set. It also covers the US, Canada, the UK, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark.