Watches of unexcelled precision
(The title is from a spam I received today, which poetically reminded me: “Long ago did fashionable wrist watches become an integral part of image!” Ah, long ago…)
Yesterday, I sat with dozens of nervous people in the waiting area outside the DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico, aka Dept. of Motor Vehicles) theory exam room. I hoped for “unexcelled precision” in my answers. After all, I did not want to repeat this experience.
After my intensive 16-hour course of two weekends ago, I spent the past week pretty much entirely focused on studying for my examen teórico. I realized that although the course carried me forward a long way, and I was (artificially) boosted in confidence by getting a perfect score on a couple of practice exams, there were still many things I didn’t know. A book of sample test questions came with my course manual, so I wrote a computer program that would randomly pick sets of 30 questions from the list (without any repeats), and started slogging through them. The goal was to cover every question, and also to make a table of ones I didn’t know or wasn’t sure of, to help me know where to focus my last-minute efforts. With 460 questions, that gave me 15 1/3 tests (I also did some of the tests on the DGT website). It usually took 15-20 minutes to do each one, plus around 15-45 minutes more to mark and go through the book to understand ones I got wrong or wasn’t 100% sure about. Plus, I kept reading or re-reading various sections of the book. I learned a lot, but also forgot plenty that I’d read (in one neuron, out the other). And the book was awful: very user-unfriendly. Even when I asked my “Dulcinea” for help understanding certain sections, she’d often have a hard time deconstructing the complex wording.
When I finally finished all 460 sample questions (Thursday night), I discovered that on average I got 12% wrong. This was not a good sign, because you are only allowed to miss 10% (3 out of 30) on your test. So it would be a bit like gambling in Vegas, where the house has a marginal edge over the long term. In my case the house edge was 2% (although the whole point of going through every question meant that I should learn from my mistakes — hopefully getting some of those right next time around — thus cutting their edge and swinging the balance in my favour). In reality, this meant that although for some tests I got zero, one or two wrong, for many of them I missed four (occasionally five, and once even six!). As in Vegas, it felt like it was going to be partly (or largely) down to luck of the draw — would they ask things I knew really well, or things I kept getting mixed up on (like whether a ciclomotor de tres ruedas was comparable — in road rules — to a quadriciclo ligero)? Would I continue missing the odd question that, although I knew the answer perfectly well, I was tricked by the Spanish wording? It turns out, too, that each person in the exam room gets a “unique” test, because we are all handed three question sheets (questions 1-10, 11-20, 21-30) which are all different. Of course, although there can be no copying, neither can there be comparing of answers once you get out of the room. (”Did you put ‘a’ or ‘c’ for that one about highways within city limits?” “I don’t remember seeing any question about travesías…”)
A few questions are almost laughably easy (especially if you already know how to drive). A few things (like signage) are fairly different from North America. And they can also be very tiquismiquis in the detail demanded. I mean, do I really need to know all the regulations and restrictions that apply to commercial trucks, if all I want to drive is a turismo? A few tricky examples include knowing the generic speed limit for a car towing a “non-light” trailer (i.e. more than 750kg maximum allowable gross weight) on a highway with 1.5m of paved shoulder (80km/h). Or how much a truck’s load can extend beyond the front and back projection of the vehicle (not at all if the load is “divisible”, otherwise up to 1/3 off the front and back if the truck is 5m long or less, otherwise no more than 2m front and 3m back, but in any case, never exceeding 12m total — whew, that’s a mouthful!).
Unlike in Canada (at least when I did my driving test nearly 20 years ago) or California (where I got a licence over ten years ago), we also had to know first aid, and basic vehicle maintenance (Q: “what might it mean if your car is emitting black smoke?” A: “that the air filter is blocked or dirty and needs replacing” — I actually understand why, now, and it has nothing to do with my intuitive guess that the dirt might be somehow getting into the engine).
Never mind the fact that all this studying and test-writing was done in Spanish, which multiplied my difficulty. Apparently you can do a translated (English) version of the test, but I wanted to learn this stuff in Spanish — also, I’d heard that sometimes the bad translations make it even more confusing! I’ve learned many, many new terms, but still sometimes got the occasional question wrong because of “language difficulties”. At times, even the verb usage threw me off — in yesterday’s test I lifted my hand twice to ask them to clarify things for me — it so happens that in one case I would have gotten the right answer regardless (I thought extravío might mean theft, while it actually means a loss/misplacing — either way it wouldn’t affect my answer to the question about driver’s licences). In the other case, though, I truly was unsure of whether they were asking whether I (3rd person singular; that is, usted in the question) or the cyclist (3rd person singular; that is, él) should yield the right-of-way. It’s an easy question, but it’s kind of important to know which of us they’re talking about! Luckily, one of the examiners confirmed what I suspected, that it was asking whether I should yield to the cyclist. For a non-native speaker, some such questions are quite trickily worded.
I have to admit, though, that although the process is a bit ridiculous (rote learning and all), it does probably give the traffic ministry the desired results. You really have to know the stuff inside out. With bad luck, you may fail when you “should” pass, but it’s quite unlikely you’d pass, purely based on good luck or guessing. The confusing wording is quite clear if you’ve seen it before and really know it. The problem (especially for this guy, who wanted to compress what should be a three month course into a couple of weeks!) is that it’s hard to remember it all.
I won’t have my results until Monday, but I think (fingers crossed) I passed. I know for sure I got at least one wrong, and there were a few others I wasn’t 100% sure on, so we’ll see. Sometimes I surprise myself (in a bad way) on the sample tests. So, you never know: I may be back…
Overall, I have to say I enjoyed the experience. Even though I (like most other guiris) moan about this trial by fire, I really do enjoy learning new things. I enjoy the challenge. It’s a double-edged sword: I hate being evaluated, but on the other hand I love being able to prove myself. Of course, I’d rather not have to do any of it, but, being obliged to do so, I find I enjoy learning more about this new country and its rules. You have no idea how much stress it relieves to be able to read all the signs on the road (and to discover they have a satisfying kind of logical consistency — in most cases). Not to mention learning more of the language…I mean, how would I otherwise have ever learned what a salpicadero was, catadióptricos or the luces gálibo? (good luck looking that one up in the dictionary)