Interview: The day of the theory test
In our second interview with budding learner driver Daisy, we have gone from practice to reality – Daisy finished her revision and took her theory test. If you’ve already digested her theory test revision tips, see how the big day went below.
Congratulations Daisy, you passed first time! What was the morning of the test like? Did you do anything that helped to get the brain juices flowing?
Thanks!
My test was at 10 o’clock so I woke up a couple of hours before I had to leave the house to get myself mentally prepared. I had a very strong coffee and started revising – both from the app on my phone and the highway code book. I have also heard that if you eat a banana before a test, you pass! So, I had a banana too… Not sure if it was the banana that made me pass but you never know!
What did you have to do when arriving at the test centre?
When I arrived, I had to show the receptionist my provisional licence, so make sure to take this with you, otherwise you will not be able to take the test. I was then given a key for a locker to put my belongings away. You will also get briefly searched but this is just to clarify you’re not hiding anything that could be used to cheat with! I then went into the test room.
So what happened in the test room?
You sit down at your own computer, in a cubicle. Your name will appear on the screen, which you just need to confirm. There will then be instructions – make sure you read them carefully just to get your head around how the test works!
It works like this:
- 50 multi-choice questions (including a case study)
A case study is a written story followed by 5 questions regarding the story. Make sure you revise this before, because I didn’t know about this part of the test! It was just really lucky I knew all of the answers to the questions asked!
Tip: Make sure to go back and check all of your answers before completing! You can change your choice of answer, if you want to.
- Hazard perception (14 video clips)
You will be shown 14 video clips from the view of a car. You have to click the mouse when you see a hazard which is about to occur on the road. So the quicker you notice the developing hazard, the higher the score! But don’t just click loads of times because if you do that you score zero!
Tip: Keep your eyes peeled on all areas of the video – if there is a side street look carefully for a speeding car or a bike etc. Also look out for any vehicles indicating and driving dangerously.
Then what happened after you completed the test?
You can leave as soon as you’re finished, but I would suggest you use every last second you have to re-check your answers. Especially having completed so many practice tests, it was easy to ‘speed read’ and skip important details when, in fact, the question was subtly different to the one I practised.
Once I left the test room, the receptionist handed me my test results. I collected my belongings before checking. It was quite nerve racking, but hopefully you will pass so you can also do the same big sigh of relief!
So come on then, what was your score?!
I scored 46 out of 50 on the multi-choice questions – so I got 4 wrong!
On the hazard perception I scored 55 out of 75 (which is really quite low).
Make sure you spend a lot of time getting your head around the hazard perception – and practice loads! The more you practice, the better you will get at responding to hazards quickly.
So if you had to prepare again, what would you do next time?
💡 When revising make sure you also spend time on the case study and the hazard perception parts of the test. I dedicated most of my time to the multi-choice questions when revising but definitely spend just as much time on the others bits!
💡 Get plenty of sleep the night before and eat a banana on the day ;) give it a go - why not!
💡 Keep revising right up until the moment you go into the test centre. Definitely revise parts of the app that you may feel you are slacking on too! Two questions came up in my test, that I had only seen and revised that very morning! So definitely use all the time you may have on the test day to revise.
GOOD LUCK to everyone that will be taking theirs soon and getting one step closer to getting on the road!
If you have any questions for Daisy, then she will be more than happy to answer them. Tweet your questions to us at @GeoffreyInsure.
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