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I have been in the UK since 2005, first came as student than got married in 2007 to a UK Citzen, went back to my country end of 2007 and came back in the beginning 2008 with the 2 year spouse visa. In 2010 I was granted the settlement visa and yesterday I applied to naturalization on basis of marriage. On the application they ask when you 1st entered in the UK and I put there 2010 because in the guidance notes it says to use the date you 1st entered with no restriction to immigration...but the NCS guy said it was wrong and I should use the date I came here for the first time...I try and argue with him and asked him if he had the booklet or guidance notes which he didn't have...than he told me he knew better as it was his job and made me cross the box and write the date I came in the UK in 2005 .... So is he right or was I right? Hope if he is wrong, it won't affect my application.....

He was right and in any case, getting it wrong has no affect on the outcome of the application.

I was actually abit confused by this question as well but as I didnt have any ncs person to help me, I just made a guess.
I first arrived in the UK on 2001 on a student visa, after i completed my degree and my student visa was approaching expiry i went back home in 2004 and applied for a working holiday maker visa, when this was approaching expiry i went home again in 2006 for a work permit application as by this time i had found a permanent job that was willing to make the application on my behalf. After 5 years of work permit I applied for ILR. As my understanding of the application was to put the date you first entered the UK with the intention to stay here permanently, I entered the 2006 date when I arrived back in the UK after obtaining work permit and not the 2001 date when I first came to the UK.

I still don't know if I put the correct date but I assumed it shouldnt really matter.

Hopefully it won't matter, the guy didn't take any photocopies of my old passport with the date I first entered as a student but obviously the HO has my whole history in their computer right? Also he gave me a fright by saying he needed more evidence of me being in UK for the eligible period as my passport was expired....I said excuse me , my passport expires in January 2013 so he had another look and said: oh I'm sorry I looked the issue date...honestly, I could speak better English than him and Im not even a native speaker....as he was transferring data into the computer I was praying for him not to get anything wrong...I want his job. I believe my case is straight forward but I wanted to keep the originals so I am glad for this service nevertheless.

good luck. i am sure your application will be fine. pls keep us posted.

i now wish i had applied through the ncs. i knew this service was available but didn't realise i would have been able to keep my passport. i thought it was just an assistance service in helping you to complete the form which i didnt think i need and was a waste of money.

To keep the original docs is the only advantage if you can read and write in English and have no problems filling forms and applications. Good luck!