Last week I had a pupil on test. It was her third attempt.
Before Christmas she failed on one thing (parallel park). The examiner said to her at the end: ” I’m really sorry to do this, it was a perfect drive, but you just need to practice that manoeuvre a little bit more “. She does it perfectly every time on lessons.
On her second attempt just after Christmas she went to pieces even before the test. She was in tears on the way to the test centre. In the end she failed for missing an observation when doing the turn in the road. It was near the end of the test and she told me she’d given up because she knew she’s failed. The problem is she hadn’t – and it was only the error on the manoeuvre that caused the fail.
This third time she failed on parallel park again. The examiner said to her: ” You’re a good driver and I want you to put in for your test straight away. You just need to get your nerves under control “.
But this is where it got interesting. I looked at her result sheet and saw the fault. I pointed out she had only failed on the parallel park. She then called her sister and mum to tell them she’d failed.
When talking to her sister she said ” my instructor doesn’t know this, but I bumped the kerb and the examiner asked me if I wanted to correct it, and I said ‘no’ “.
When she’d finished the call I explained that this was a lifeline and if she had have corrected it she would have passed. She acted surprised at this, and I found that surprising. But as we drove back home it became a little clearer what she was hiding from me: the examiner had actually told her in the car at the end that if she’d have corrected it he would have passed her . What had happened is that she’d spit her dummy out, she knew it, and she was trying not to admit it – and I made certain she realised that she’d thrown away a pass as a result!
I could kill them sometimes.