What are pretest lessons?
A pretest is a lesson for someone who can already drive and has a test coming up. We spend the hour on what the tester marks: the vehicle checks you'll be asked for, the manoeuvres, and the faults that cost people a pass. I teach them at both test centres, Wicklow and Dún Laoghaire, in a manual or an automatic.
What a pretest covers
The roads the test uses
Practice on the roads the test comes off, including the junctions and roundabouts where faults are most often picked up
Skills Assessment
An honest read of where your driving is, and what is costing you marks
Test Manoeuvres
Practice all test manoeuvres including reverse around corner, turnabout, and hill starts
Feedback you can act on
Notes after the lesson on what to fix before test day
What to expect
Initial Assessment
I assess where your driving actually is now, and which faults would cost you marks on the day
Personalised Plan
We build the plan around what you actually need to practise
Practice on those roads
Practice on the roads the test comes off, so nothing on the day is somewhere you have never driven
Mock Tests
Experience realistic test conditions with mock driving tests and detailed feedback
Key areas covered
Who a pretest is for
Anyone with a test date coming up, whether it's your first attempt or your fourth. A pretest assumes you can already drive, so it doesn't replace EDT and it won't suit a beginner. The whole hour goes on the things a tester marks.
It is also the lesson that has to come before you can use my car for the test. I need to have driven with you before I hand you the keys on test day, and you need to know the car before it is the thing that counts.
If you have already failed once
Most people who fail do it on a few repeated faults, and the report you were given names them. Bring it with you. People who go again without reading it tend to fail for the same reason. We work through what was marked, on the roads where it was marked, and leave the rest of the syllabus alone.
What the tester is actually marking
Faults are graded, and much of the grading comes down to observation: whether you saw the hazard as well as whether you avoided it. That's hard to judge from the driver's seat, because a fault you never noticed feels like a clean drive. Most of a pretest goes on finding those.
Where we practise
Around whichever test centre you're sitting at, on the roads the test uses, with the junctions, hill starts and roundabouts that come up again and again. We start and finish at a meeting point we agree, usually near the centre.
If you have not sat a test before, the Wicklow test centre guide and the Dún Laoghaire test centre guide cover the practical side of the day.
RSA approved
I'm an RSA approved driving instructor (ADI)
Local roads
I've taught for years on the roads both tests come off
Booking
Send the form with your test date and centre, and I'll come back to you with times