Name the three branches of government.

Why this is the answer

The Constitution builds the federal government in three pieces, and it does so in its first three articles. Article I gives the lawmaking power to Congress, Article II puts the executive power in a President, and Article III places the judicial power in one Supreme Court and whatever lower federal courts Congress decides to create. That order is the answer: legislative, executive, judicial. Each branch has its own job. Congress makes federal laws, the executive branch enforces them, and the courts review them. The reason for splitting power three ways goes back to the Constitutional Convention. The Founders feared that any single person or group holding too much power could take over the country, so they gave each branch different powers and let each one restrain the others. The 2008 civics lessons give two examples of these checks: the Senate can block a treaty the President has signed, and the Supreme Court can reject a law passed by Congress. One responsibility of the courts in particular is deciding whether laws and government actions follow the Constitution. USCIS accepts two ways of answering. You can give the formal names, legislative, executive and judicial, or the institutions behind them, Congress, the President and the courts. Either set works, as long as you name all three. That last part is where people slip. The question asks for three branches, and stopping after two, or mixing in something that is not a branch, such as the Cabinet or the states, leaves the answer incomplete. The House and the Senate are the two halves of one branch, Congress, not two branches of their own. If the formal words are hard to say under pressure, the plain version is just as good. Think of what each one does with a law: one writes it, one carries it out, one judges whether it fits the Constitution.