How Many Amendments Does the U.S. Constitution Have? Civics Question 7

The answer is twenty-seven (27).

Question 7 asks how many amendments the U.S. Constitution has. There is one accepted answer: twenty-seven. This is a starred question, so it can also show up on the shorter test for applicants who are 65 or older. No other number is marked correct.

Ten Plus Seventeen

The count splits cleanly in two.

The first ten amendments arrived together in 1791 and are known as the Bill of Rights. Seventeen more have been added since, one at a time, spread across more than two hundred years.

Ten plus seventeen is twenty-seven. That is the whole answer, and it is the only piece of arithmetic this question needs.

The most recent one, the 27th, deals with congressional pay. It says a change in the pay of members of Congress cannot take effect until after the next election of representatives. It was first proposed in 1789, alongside the amendments that became the Bill of Rights, and states kept ratifying it until it finally passed in 1992.

Why Ten Is the Wrong Answer

The number 10 is the trap in this question. You will study the Bill of Rights for question 6, you will hear “ten amendments” over and over, and 10 becomes the number your mouth reaches for when it hears the word amendment.

Keep the two counts in separate boxes:

• 10 is how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights.
• 27 is how many amendments the Constitution has in total.

The Bill of Rights is a part of the answer, not the answer. If an officer asks how many amendments the Constitution has and you say ten, you have counted only the first batch.

How to Remember Twenty-Seven

Two hooks work here, so use whichever one sticks.

The first is the addition above: ten from 1791, seventeen since, twenty-seven total.

The second builds off a number you already learn elsewhere. Question 63 covers the amendments about voting, and the last one on that list is the 26th, which set the voting age at 18. One more amendment came after it. Twenty-six plus one is twenty-seven.

One warning about counting. Two amendments cancel each other out: the 18th banned alcohol and the 21st repealed that ban. Both are still amendments and both are still counted. Nothing is subtracted from the total, so the number stays at twenty-seven.

What to Say on Test Day

Say “twenty-seven.” You can hold up the number or say it plainly.

Do not add “including the Bill of Rights,” and do not correct yourself out loud if you hesitate. One number, said once, is the answer.