So you made it through truck driving school. Congratulations!
Now comes the (not) fun part: passing your exam to get your commercial driver’s license.
Like any test, there’s an art to passing it. Here, we’re breaking down eight essential tips to passing your CDL exam with flying colors.
1. Get Focused
The entire time spent in truck driving school was aimed at helping you learn how to become a professional truck driver and pass the CDL exam. In fact, your CDL is one of your most basic requirements for this job.
And that means it’s time for you to get focused.
From the time you start trucking driving school until you pass, you should be focused on your exam (allowing for sleep and reasonable breaks, of course.)
In moments when it feels hard to put your nose to the grindstone, remember that your CDL is going to help you earn a living. Treat it with the appropriate reverence and dedicate a certain amount of time to studying every day.
2. Know What to Study
Of course, it helps if you know what to spend your time studying to prep for your trucking career.
A good truck driver training program will offer a thorough course of study to help you prepare for your CDL test. You are working for your future, so make sure to utilize every resource they provide.
In essence, your truck driving training program can serve as your guide to what to study. Since the training program is essentially preparing you to pass your exam to start work, everything you covered in class is everything the exam will cover.
Take a critical look at your program. What parts did you struggle with the most? What parts were easiest? That can be your guide as to where you need to spend your time.
3. Know Your CDL Manual Like You Wrote It
With that in mind, you should know your CDL manual like you wrote it yourself.
Seriously, it’s your CDL exam survival guide.
If you don’t already have one, Colorado’s CDL manual is available online in 140 pages. Sections include:
- Driving safely
- Transporting cargo safely
- Transporting passengers safely
- Airbrakes
- Combination vehicles
- Doubles and triples
- Tank vehicles
- Transporting hazardous materials
- School buses
- Vehicle inspection test
- Basic vehicle controls skill set
- On road driving
Everything that you could want to know to do well on your exam (or get specialized licenses to do a specific kind of driving) can be found in this manual.
If you don’t own one, invest in one or print out the digital PDF so that you can carry it with you and study it in your spare time. Consider it an investment in your future.
4. Give Yourself a Timeline
Of course, your driver’s test isn’t just about studying for the test itself.
A good way to help yourself be ready for the test is to set yourself a timeline. This will help you get super clear about how much time you have to study and when you’d like to pass the test to start driving.
It can be easy to want to take the test right after you finish your training program. And that can be helpful, considering that the material is fresh in your mind.
But you also want to make sure you have enough time to be truly prepared for the test. As such, it’s essential to create a realistic timeline.
For example, if you’re already working a full-time job, you won’t have eight hours a day to devote to studying, so trying to go from zero to 60 to pass the test in a week just isn’t realistic.
5. Watch Out for Automatic Failure Mistakes
You should also be careful of certain mistakes on the test which qualify as automatic failures. In other words, even if you do everything else right on the test, you’ll still fail if you get these wrong.
Some of them are obvious, like getting into a wreck or running a red light.
But others are less obvious, smaller things like forgetting your turn signal, forgetting to check your mirrors, or rolling backward at a stop sign before you move forward.
These seem like small errors, and in a car, they are. But when you’re driving a semi, these mistakes can be dangerous for the drivers around you.
6. Take a Practice Permit Test
Studying is the best way to prepare for your test, but being mentally prepared to take the test is another matter entirely. This is why practice tests are crucial to your driver application success.
CDL practice tests will give you a sense of what kind of questions you’ll be asked on the real test and how these questions might be worded. This will allow you to get an accurate assessment of how well you understand the material.
You can often find these practice tests in the back of the CDL manual or on your state DMV website. If you’re using a practice test from your manual, it’s a good idea to make copies before you write on the test so that you have several copies to practice with.
7. Practice Your Best Test-Taking Skills
These practice tests will also give you a chance to hone your best test-taking strategies.
Some strategies apply specifically to the test day, like arriving early. But many others you can practice on your practice tests–like carefully reading all of the instructions, planning how you will use the allotted time, and noting the details of the question–can all be utilized in your practice test.
Remember: your practice tests are an indicator of how you perform on the real test, so treat each one like you would treat the real test.
8. Be Alert, But Don’t Let Anxiety Beat You
Once you’re taking the exam, remember to stay on your toes.
We all had that high school teacher that loved to slip trick questions into the test, so keep a close eye on how each question is worded.
That isn’t to say you will get trick questions, but rather that trick questions are possible.
On the other hand, don’t let anxiety keep you from performing at your best. If you’ve taken the time and you truly know your material, the only thing that can hold you back is your fear of failing.
Passing Your CDL Exam with Flying Colors
Your CDL exam is your investment in the future. If you’ve already put a lot of time into becoming a truck driver, you want to make sure you give the exam the attention it deserves.
If you’re ready to take your test and take the next step towards your future, we’re here to help. We offer CDL skills testing through third-party testing centers.
And once you’ve passed your test, we’re here to help you thrive in your new career with lifetime trucking job placement, because we believe in the success of our students.
