Which New York CDL tests do you actually need?

Start from the vehicle, not from the list

A commercial license is not one exam. It is a set of knowledge tests, and the set is different for a dump truck driver and a school bus driver. Work out the vehicle first and the list falls out of it.

Everybody sits General Knowledge

There is no class of commercial license without it. It carries the rules, the vehicle, the inspection and the road, and it is the longest of the eight.

Then the vehicle itself

Air Brakes if the vehicle has them, and this one is worth reading twice. Skip it and you do not simply miss an endorsement: a restriction goes on the license saying you may not drive a vehicle equipped with air brakes, which rules out most of the work. Combination Vehicles if you will pull a trailer as a tractor-trailer, which is the Class A road.

Then the cargo or the people

Tank Vehicles, Hazardous Materials and Doubles and Triples each cover a cargo. Passenger Transport covers carrying people for hire. School Bus sits on top of Passenger rather than instead of it, so a school bus driver sits both.

The order to sit them in

General Knowledge first, because the other seven assume it. Air Brakes next if the vehicle has them, since the restriction is the expensive mistake. Endorsements after that, in whatever order the job needs them. Hazardous Materials is the one to plan around: it carries a federal background check that takes weeks, so starting it late delays the license rather than the test.

What is the same on all eight

Three answer choices per question, set by 49 CFR 383.133, and 80% to pass each one, set by 49 CFR 383.135. Those two numbers are federal and they do not move between states.

What New York does not tell you

How many questions each test asks. New York publishes a count for School Bus and for nothing else. Other states publish full tables and they agree with each other, but another state's number is not New York's, so anyone quoting you a figure for New York is quoting a neighbor. Our forms have lengths of their own, and those are ours rather than the state's.