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Daily Archive: 25/07/2021

Sunday

25

July 2021

0

COMMENTS

Guide to Passing the Driving Test by Malcolm Green

Written by , Posted in Move to UK: Settling In, Reviews

Three Stars

Best for:
People without access to the Theory 4 in 1 Driving Test App

In a nutshell:
This book offers all 700+ practice questions, as well as a guide to help pass the theory and practical tests, and some new driver essentials.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
Trying to really make sure I pass the test.

Review:
I learned to drive over 25 years ago, in the US. On the right side of the road. In an automatic vehicle. When my partner and I moved to England 3.5 years ago, we didn’t think that in a couple of years there would be a pandemic, and renting a car might be the best way for us to safely go on little trips. So neither of us really bothered to seek out our UK license, which is unfortunate, as a US license is not valid for driving in the UK after a year.

There is a huge back-up with lessons and tests due to the pandemic, but I was able to book in for tomorrow (!) a couple of months back. In the UK, the first bit is a theory test, which include 50 questions (of which one needs to answer 43 correctly) as well as these bizarre ‘hazard perception’ videos. There are 14 of them, 13 of which have one major hazard and 1 has two, and the test involves clicking as early as the hazard appears (but not too early) to get between 1 and 5 points. Need to get a 44% to pass, which is actually fairly difficult initially. For me anyway, the practice videos I’ve often clicked too soon, leading to me getting zero points instead of five.

This book obviously can’t help with the videos, but for people who do prefer to learn from a book instead of an app, it is user friends, has pretty straightforward explanations of why certain answers are correct (which the app seems to be missing), and all sorts of little tips. There are things I didn’t expect to need to know for this test, like about car maintenance (refill your battery? What?). I’m also only taking the automatic practical test, so some questions also seem a bit weird to me as I don’t drive manual.

I guess the test will be if I actually pass tomorrow. If I do, it’ll probably be thanks to the app as opposed to the book, but the book wasn’t a waste of money or anything.

Recommend to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it
Toss it (if I pass!) – I’ve also circled the answers so it’s not exactly helpful anymore.