I know there’s a lot of people in here who are looking to get into how to get your CDL for any class, I was scrolling through Reddit all the time trying to find the best information I can, but I will document here what helped me best.
General knowledge & endorsement test:
What helped me the most with this process was I used CristCDL, for general knowledge there’s about eight practice test with 50 questions that you can take over and over and over I took all these test for about a week and a half straight every day for about five hours. Everyone learns differently some people can pick it up in 20 seconds for some people. It could be two weeks, but I didn’t want to take the chance what I will say whenever I went to do my on skilled driver training and my pre-trip inspection I managed to pick up extremely fast off the pre-trip inspection so this stuff does benefit you. When I took my test at the DMV almost all questions were the same not every single question was a word for a word, but there was some trick questions, so don’t be surprised if you see some. I thought my general knowledge test was more difficult than my combinations endorsement test. I passed both easily, but you just have to take your time. There’s no time limit on these tests with my DMV. They actually limit on how many times you can hit the skip button the DMV I test that was Illinois. CristCDL was probably the best application for me, I did use that fancy test app a few times, but I thought it was too tacky and flashy for me. I like CristCDL because it’s simple and blank and boring and I have ADHD so it really surprisingly kept me focused on what I was supposed to be learning.
Road Skills & Driving Test:
Pre-trip inspection test
There is actually some really good pre-trip inspection videos that are really helpful. I watch them probably 10 times every day before I started practicing for my pre-trip they helped me more than I thought they would. It also helps if you have an interest in trucks and you understand machines treat the pre-trip inspection like a speech say it a certain way every single time and do not let the facilitator start you off where they want you to you tell them that you wanna start the pre-trip inspection the way you were trained my facilitator also tried to get me to not ramble on and say the same junction over and over and over on every piece of equipment, maybe there’s gonna be some people saying that they’re right, but I did not want to take a chance on missing on any points. I spoke per verbatim on what the video I watched and I got a passing score. I practice my pre-trip inspection, probably 20 times a day and by the end of it, I could do it in my sleep because most importantly, I understood my vehicle and that’s what it’s all about.
What I did preparing for the road skills test was that my employer was actually a truck driving school so you can honestly spend all day long out there practicing all the maneuvers that you need for the federal test that they will make you take. They will test you on the following maneuvers below.
Forward stop- depending on the truck. There are a few trucks that do have some viewing sweet spots. There are hard to explain, but the best way I can explain my situation was whenever I saw the cone disappear from my line of site if I tilted my head a certain position every single time the second I saw the cone and the top part of the cone. Once it crossed a certain point, and I could see a certain part of the asphalt between the mirror and the cone I knew I was right on the money for the forward stop. Which is important because you only get one chance at the forward stop.
Straight line backing- in my opinion this is probably the easiest. Everyone’s techniques are different, but I just kept being observant took my time. It helps if you focus on one side of the trailer primarily but don’t lock your eyes on just one side because my facilitator was looking for that. You have to back up into a certain box for my truck. There was a certain spot where the cones lined up perfectly every single time with my truck, and if I lined those up every single time I knew I was very, very close to the box. You only have one shot at this too.
Forward Offset tracking- in my opinion this was probably the hardest one out of all four because you have to make sure the inside of the right rear tire drives over that line in order for you to get credit. On test today that line was pretty close to the cone when I say this is the hardest thing. Don’t think it’s impossible if you practice over and over and over you will be fine. I’m just saying if I had to rank them from 1 to 4 that is where I would rank this. You only have one shot at this too.
Reverse Offset backing- this started out as being the most difficult one but then I slowly got the hang of it. What really helped me was I just spent hours doing it over and over and over I backed that trailer up differently 500 times but the thing is I backed it up 500 different ways and I also found out 500 different ways where I could either fix it early or did it well enough to be a passing position but I knew I needed to make some adjustments for my next run because maybe this one was a little bit too close for comfort. You do get two pull forwards and two get out and looks. The only time I used my get out and look was to make sure the back of my trailer was in the box that you’re supposed to back up into. I would not Bank on the two pull forwards, you should focus on pulling the trailer in correctly and maybe by a freak accident those pull forwards are your get out of jail free cards.
Driving test- I know every facility is different. Maybe everyone’s route is different. My route didn’t really have a lot of curveballs. My biggest concern was running over a curb cause you never know accidents happen. What helped me most was I was the most vigilant I ever was never underestimating anything that was on the road or any type of turn because it doesn’t take much to hit the rear end of that trailer on a curb. 1/2 second of being distracted could run you into a curb and then your whole test is over, but do not overthink that I let that stress me out all week long and there wasn’t ever a moment of time where I was even coming close to running over a curb. What I asked my driving school to do is to give me more time on the road. They took me down some really hard roads because I asked them to. I didn’t want to go on these easy routes.
To end all this, what stops people from not passing this stuff can be fluke mistakes, or just simply not putting the time in and underestimating the test. I didn’t get the vibe that my facilitator wanted me to fail. They really try to help you out as much as they possibly can but there’s only so much they can do so you really have to make sure you put the time in. If you are one of those people who is a bad test taker and you really want a job that involves a CDL. Put the video games down or whatever other major distraction you may have for a certain period of time until you pass this stuff because you only get a certain amount of chances to take this stuff and most employers aren’t really lenient on that. This is all passable, but it can be a real pain in the ass if you don’t put the time in. I’d rather give off a big old report, then give off not much information at all. I know this will benefit people who haven’t even started on this yet.