What is on the CDL General Knowledge test?

The one nobody skips

Every class of commercial license needs it, so it is the first test almost everyone sits and the only one with no alternative route around it.

Twenty areas, set federally

49 CFR 383.111(a) names them, and they are not grouped or weighted in the regulation. Safe operations regulations. Safe vehicle control systems. Commercial vehicle safety control systems. Basic control. Shifting. Backing. Visual search. Communication. Speed management. Space management. Night operation. Extreme driving conditions. Hazard perceptions. Emergency maneuvers. Skid control and recovery. The relationship of cargo to vehicle control. Vehicle inspections. Hazardous materials awareness. Mountain driving. Fatigue and awareness.

What that list tells you about the test

Read the twenty together and a shape appears. Roughly half are about controlling the vehicle: shifting, backing, skids, speed, space, emergencies. Most of the rest are about seeing trouble early, which is what visual search, hazard perceptions, communication and night operation all are underneath. Only a few are paperwork. A candidate who studies the rules and skips the handling half has prepared for the smaller part of it.

The two that surprise people

Mountain driving is on the federal list whether or not your route has a mountain on it, and so is hazardous materials awareness, which is there even for drivers with no intention of hauling any. Neither is optional because of where you live.

Passing it

Three choices a question, from 49 CFR 383.133, and 80% to pass, from 383.135. On a fifty-question paper that is forty right, and on a shorter one it is still four in five.

How long is the real thing

New York does not publish a question count for this test. Our own forms run fifty questions, which is our length rather than the state's, spread across the twenty areas so that none of them goes unasked.