Court Rules Against Test for DC Tour Guides

Each week in our Saturday Supplement, we re-post an entry of interest to both residents of the Washington area and visitors to DC that first appeared in another publication's web site.

You don’t need a special license to be a tour guide in Washington.

That’s the take of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled Friday that a Segway tour operator’s guides shouldn’t be required to pass a multiple-choice test and pay $200 in licensing fees to offer guided tours of the city’s monuments, museums and other points of interest.

The test requires applicants to answer a total 100 questions in fourteen categories: architecture; dates; government; historical events; landmark buildings; locations; monuments and memorials; museums and art galleries; parks, gardens, zoos, and aquariums; presidents; sculptures and statues; universities; pictures; and regulations. To pass, applicants must score a 70. (See seven sample questions.)

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in The Wall Street Journal, click here.