I’ve red a lot of places that is super hard and it’s like acting all the steps and checks. It did not hear so hard to me, BUT I wanted to go to school for some practices. I didn’t found a school that is less than 20.000. I mean, those are like 8 tries. I think I can get the practice of constantly failing the test. Is there any consequence of doing this? Should I go to school first?
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Pay the 20,000 for a weekend practice session at the course. How much are your afternoons worth to continually fail until you learn all the tiny bits that fail people. After my morning practice session, I knew the course so well that I didn’t need any prompts for what turn to make or what to do. I just went about my test and passed the first time.
For perspective, Out of about 40 people taking the test or retesting that day, only 4 of us passed. I was the only first time test taker to pass. So do you really want to spend likely 10+ afternoons or more trying to figure out why you failed and how to do it correctly?
Do you already have a license and need to take the test to transfer it? If so, then you could try but know it’s very difficult. When I took the test, there were about a dozen people and only 2 of us passed. It’s not too difficult but if you make one small mistake like hit a curb on the S curves, you automatically fail. One person failed for their 13th time and started screaming at the instructor.
Look.
The test itself is easy but with a huge asterisk.
The test is easy only if you already know how to pass it. It’s like that island in Pirates of the Caribbean that can only be found by them that knows where it is.
Driving school takes you to the island.
Theoretically you can pass that test with no practice but lol good luck with that. The test is a performance test and is basically bullshit. Can you do a specific set of tasks exactly the way they want? The tasks are easy but between language barriers and just generally bring difficult to explain verbally the weird ass way they want you to signal, turn, accelerate, brake, and the whole kit and kaboodle, it’s just way easier to go to driving school and let them show you.
When I took the test and failed, the examiners wouldn’t actually tell me what caused me to fail, and simply responded with, “It’s a test, we can’t tell you how to pass.” Maybe you won’t have the same experience, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to master the course just by doing it repeatedly, so there’s that.
The prefecture you live in also has a huge effect on how the test is. If you live out in the countryside, paying for a course might be worth it, but it seems easier to pass in Tokyo.
Also be aware that taking the test takes quite a few hours; for most jobs, taking the test once means taking a day off of work. If you can pass the test on the first few tries, that’s great. But if you can’t, it’s gonna add up.
Look up the course on youtube, usually there’s a video of it and it’ll give explanations on what to do. The small things people fail to do that leads to failure is checking their mirrors deliberately (turn your head) and responding to the proctors instructions.
That’s how I got my driving license (from scratch). I never even considered schools. However, I was not under any time pressure to get my license. It took me about a two months all told.
Everyone I knew who went to the school passed on their first try. Take that for what you will
If you’re an experienced driver elsewhere, I would just study online beforehand, watch a video of someone walking the course (or in some cases, driving it!) and do it.
If this is your first time ever, maybe take the class. Also depends on your schedule and if you’re able to keep taking the exam over and over
I would highly suggest going to a driving school for at least a day. I went to a school and was taught about so many little things that had to be exactly right. I didn’t check my mirrors in the correct order when changing lanes so the driving instructor suddenly slammed on the brakes and yelled right into my ear, “ 何してる！日本厳しいーーー！”
He screamed that right into my ear.
Fortunately I passed the driving test on my first try.
Good luck. 🍀
don’t waste your money. the test is really easy.
passed it without any practice, my first time driving in Japan was during the test. I even mistook the turning signal with wiping up the rain droplet… all I had was a 12 years of driving experience back home… keep left, don’t go too fast, don’t go too slow, turn when asked to turn, that’s it…
I read as much as I could in advance. Watched some people take it. Sat in the back seat while the person ahead of me failed. Then passed it on my first try. If you can follow directions and mentally prepare it’s not hard. For my motorcycle I also tried “ippatsu” but failed on the balance beam the first round. The proctor let me run the rest of the course. Came back the following weekend and passed.
If you are an experienced driver, giving it a few goes isn’t the worst thing in the world. Best case scenario, you pass. Worst case, you spend a little extra but get to really value the driving school you pay so much for 😉
Just take it accept that you’ll fail a few times and that should be sufficient”practice”
Ahh… To be young – where you have all the time in the world, and you know everything there is to know (or so, you think), but are constrained by your finances.
Good luck with that. I, as a number of others on this thread, recommend taking a short (1 day) familiarization course from a nearby driving school. Preferably one that will let you drive on the actual circuit itself – Mainly because you might need to “unlearn” some things from before.
There were several pointers that my course instructor made sure I understood, and they were significantly different from driving in my home country (eg, right turn from minor into a major road, entering a junction when your view is ‘obstructed’ (represented by a bald bush on my test circuit), amongst others; I would have failed if I drove perfectly as per the instructions from my home country.
I also practiced driving the three possible drive routes at my test center several times that session, where I was advised on what the tester is looking out for.
It’ll be money well spent IMO.
I’ve been driving over 25 years, including 6 in Japan. I was out of Japan nearly a decade and only came back recently. I had to start the process from scratch. The paper test was 50 questions, of which you had to get 95%!!! Sadly, despite all my experience, I failed. As others have said, the tests are not about how well you can DRIVE, but how well you can jump through their stupid hoops.
Make sure you’re taking classes as closely as possible to the testing site. I was dinged for breaking rules that were never even taught at the school in my city, three hours away, *in the same prefecture*. I told them as much, and they said it was my fault and next time I should book a hotel and come up to practice closer to the school sometime. It’s crazy but it’s an extremely strict test that they’ve never bothered to even standardize within individual prefectures. Also if you are operating under a strict time limit, schedule the test ASAP. I was told I could take the driver’s test every 3 weeks, but when I tried to book another test for the next month, they said they weren’t testing again for nearly four months.
I never got my driver’s license. Broken system.