8.3 KiB
The Tragic Tale of DMV Written Test
3/15/2024
To be honest, I did not expect to be writing another entry this soon, but here I am. I recently returned home from the DMV. I had gone to take my drivers test, confident that I would pass. The result was horrifying.
The idea for this blog just hit me; just like the other two ideas I had hit me this morning. The first one was a simple readable system of stylsheets that would allow syntax highlighting in pure CSS. That is a topic for another entree. The second idea was to look up Most commonly missed written driving test questions,
comma not included (or period had I not put that sentence there). That allowed me to see the answers that I was most likely to miss.
I was soon going to take the written driving test at the DMV for the third time, after waiting a few months. I was unawear of the stupid polocy on that, which I will get into later. I looked through a few lists of the most commonly missed questions, and they were almost the same. After doing that, I figured that I knew enough to pass the test. My father suggested that we took a few practice tests before we left. So we did, and by the way I hate how there are no open source practince tests. My brother, father, and I all answered togewther, nd discussed the questions. At first, our score was 48%. Partly through the second test, my father dicided to write down the answer to all of the hardquestions. We had put together a study guiide by twhe end of the third test. On the second test we got 52%. On the third we passed with 80.
My little brother drove us to the DMV. He had passed his first test with 80%. I got 75% on my first test. That is not passing. I got the last question wrong, and it was a guess between two questions. I goet as close as possible to passing. Our tests were done on the same outing. AFter I got such ahigh score, I had a burst of confidence, and took it again. I bombed it. I was really sore that I got so close the first time, and that my little brother who was 1.5 years yonger than me passed. He had taken a few practice tests before, and I had not. I said that if I could get two vastly different results, then the test was flawed. I still beleive that.
Anyways, on the way to the DMV this morning, my parrents quized me with the study guide, and I did very well. When we got to the DMV I was confident that I would pass the test. Once I started it, though, I was nervous. I got two questions wrong in a row, nearly right off the bad. I calamed myself down, and took deep breaths. I relaxed. I took my time on the following questions, and by the end I was sure that I was going to pass. I came to the last question, and I had five questions wrong. This question was the determining question, again! I had a horrifying DeJa Vu moment. This time I could not blow it.
The question was something to the effect of this: What should you do when driving through a work zone that has no posted speed limit (other than the normal one)?
Excuse my poor wording, but you get the idea. There where three options: To drive fifteen MPH faster than the normal speed limit; to drive fifteen MPH slower than the normal speed limit; to remain the same speed. Of course, I chose the second one. I was wrong; the third was correct. I was very upset.
After taking the first two tests, I decided that I did not care about driving, and that I would just wait. When I started to get driven around by my little brother, I suddenly changed my mind. Driving seemed like something that I wanted to learn. I then took practice tests, like my brother said, even though at the time I did not think that they would help me. They didn't actually. None of the questions on the study guide were one the test that I took. Only one thing was one the test that I had studied, and it was a question that I got wrong. It was one of the questions on all of those sites that had a list of the most commonly missed questios. Also, my father, and brother said that they got it wrong. I got it wrong too. You are supposed to turn your wheels away from the curb when parking up hill. I got that one wrong even though I saw it on all of those sites. Logically, I would have turn my wheels towards the curb. I guess now that I think about it, if you would be traveling backward, you turn in the opposite direction that you want the car to go.
Some of following points I credit to my mother's talking during the car ride home. Thanks mom. Here my take on this situation: The written driving test is stupid. Its questions are disigned to confuse the taker. The test is designed, blatently might I add, for the taker to fail, regardless of whether or not have the right amount of useful knowlage to begin driver. In my opinion that is a very low amount.
In programming books, I often here that doing is the best way to learn. And I think thatit appies to driving. The large amount of the questions on a driving tests are about useless things when it comes down to learning how to drive. The majoryty of kids who walk intmwo the driving testt leave having failed. These are kids who are not learning how to drive. The stupidist thing about all of this is their six month policy for test failures. If you fil the test four times, you have to wvait six months to take it again. That is six months that you are not spend idng on the road learning how to direv. Also, if I took the driving test once a year, and failed each time, then after four years, I would have to wait six months before taking the test again. This system discorages the tester form taking time to study in between their failed tests. The system encourages testers to cram their attempts, because time that they are not taking tests outside ofd the six month waiting period is wasted. My advice is to read through the driving book when you are 13, and start testing at 14. If you fail one test, take another as soon as possible.
I learned one important thing from those practice tests. The governmentc is trying to reduce the amountof words in the read signs, and add more symbols. Funny thing, one of the reasons I failed that test is because one of the signs had an ambigous symbol. The road signs are designed by dummies for dummies.
The drining tist is just a scam to get people to pak half a thousand bucks for Driver's Ed. Please don't give into that system like I will have to. I feel very unlucky that I got as close as possible to passing, on two occasions. What are the odds of that? Anyways, I am gonna do Driver's Ed, because if I fail once more I have to wait six monthst ot st again. I am afraid that no matter how meuch I study (I'll admit that I havn't studied much), I have a high chancge of failure.
By the way, the written test is not written. it is preformed on a computer, that is probably running bloated Windows. The test is slow, and I know that it is a web app. In fact, it used to be in a web browser, and I could easily break the test if I wanted to by pulling up a right click menu, and clicking the Search the web button. Doing so would break the test, and I actually got retake it once. I was kind of hoping that I could still take advantage of that. By the way, the buttons are very unresponsive. I could set up a better driving test all by myself.
Ulike the garbage driving test, this sites source code is available on Disroot Git: https://git.disroot.org/oink/blogs
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