How the practice tests, residence dates and fees are built

Every page and every tool reads two files: the question bank and one parameter file of official rules, fees and processing times, read on 25 October 2026. No pass mark, fee or day limit is typed into a page. When Home Affairs changes a rule, the parameter file changes and every page and tool follows on the next build.

1. The questions

The bank holds 229 questions: 63 on Part 1: Australia and its people; 51 on Part 2: Democratic beliefs, rights and liberties; 64 on Part 3: Government and the law in Australia; 51 on Part 4: Australian values. Each question has one right answer, an explanation, its part of the booklet and a finer topic, such as the states and territories or the levels of government. The explanations are adapted from Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond, © Commonwealth of Australia, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence; the Coat of Arms, which the licence excludes, is never used.

We leave out questions whose answer depends on who holds an office today, and facts that changed after the booklet was printed. No question was copied from an app, a book, another site or the real test, which Home Affairs does not publish.

2. How a mock test is drawn and marked

A mock test has the length of the real one: 20 questions, 45 minutes in the timed mode. The draw takes exactly 5 questions from Part 4, Australian values, and the other 15 from Parts 1 to 3, at random with a seed, so the same link replays the same test. The mark applies the rule Home Affairs has used for tests sat since 15 November 2020: at least 75% overall, which is 15 correct answers out of 20, and all 5 values questions right. The result shows the two conditions separately and the score for each part. A practice set by part or topic is not a mock test: it uses 75% as a target and says so.

3. How the first date to apply is found

The residence calculator applies the general residence requirement published on the Home Affairs page for permanent residents: 4 years of lawful residence, the last 12 months as a permanent resident, no more than 365 days outside Australia in the 4 years and no more than 90 in the last 12 months. It tries every day from today, in order, and stops at the first one on which all four conditions hold. Departure and arrival days count as days in Australia, as stated in a Home Affairs document released under freedom of information (fa-250801434); the worked example in that document is one of our automated tests. Special Category Visa holders and New Zealand citizens on a subclass 189 visa get the deemed permanent residence dates Home Affairs publishes.

When a figure falls within five days of a limit, the result says so: the official count uses your real movement records, and a date typed one day off can change the answer. The official residence calculator remains the reference.

4. Fees and processing times

Fees come from form 1298i, design date July 2026, the schedule Home Affairs publishes after the yearly indexation on 1 July. On 25 October 2026, several Home Affairs pages still showed older amounts, such as $285 for general eligibility, against $595 on the form; we follow the form and point out the outdated pages. Processing times come from the monthly processing table, updated 16 October 2026; we show them as Home Affairs does, as shares of applications decided within a time, never as a promise.

5. Checks

Automated tests run on every build: every question has at least two options, a right answer among them, an explanation, a part and a topic; every mock test has 20 questions with 5 values questions; the official worked example gives the official date; the family fees add up. A script compares the fee form and the processing table with our parameter file. Until the site is published it is run by hand; once the site is published it runs automatically every month and stops the update when an amount differs, until a person has checked it.

6. What the site does not do

• It does not assess character, identity, or the intention to live in Australia: only the residence condition and the test.
• It does not reproduce or claim to reproduce the real test.
• It does not book appointments or lodge applications, which is done only through ImmiAccount and the Home Affairs website.

Method version: 2026-10-25. A figure that looks wrong: contact.