By some distance the biggest category, and the one most worth drilling until it is automatic. Shapes and colours carry meaning before the words do, and knowing that a circle orders you and a triangle warns you answers a lot of questions on its own.
It also covers road markings, traffic light sequences, and signals given by police officers and traffic wardens.
Practise road and traffic signs
Questions come from the DVSA revision question bank, used under licence. You will not see whether an answer is right until you have committed to one, which is the point. A sample of every topic is free and needs no account.
Start practisingA language you read at forty miles an hour
Road signs are designed to be understood in roughly the moment you spend passing one, which is why they rely so heavily on shape and colour. By the time you can read the words, you should already know whether the sign is telling you to do something, warning you about something or simply giving you directions. This topic is about making that recognition automatic.
Where people trip up
The signs most learners know are the dramatic ones: stop, give way, no entry. The ones that cost marks are quieter. A blue circle showing a white bicycle marks a path only cycles may use, while a blue rectangle with much the same picture just suggests a good route for them. Put a symbol inside a red ring and it bans something. Put it inside a blue circle and it becomes an instruction. Small differences, big change in meaning.
Then there is everything painted on the road itself. Double white lines, hatched areas, box junctions, zigzags near crossings and the different kinds of yellow line by the kerb all carry rules, and they are far easier to miss than a sign on a pole, especially in rain or at night.
Signs that change
More and more signs are electronic. Variable speed limits on motorways, lane control signals and warnings about queues can change from one minute to the next. A speed limit shown inside a red ring on a gantry is a legal limit, not a suggestion, even if the same sign said seventy a few minutes ago.
People as signs
Traffic lights and painted lines are not the only signals. Police officers, school crossing patrols and road workers holding stop and go boards all direct traffic, and their instructions override what the lights or signs are showing.
A practical way to learn them
Signs are easier to remember when you see them in context. As a passenger, try naming each sign before you reach it and saying what it wants you to do. Within a few journeys most of the common ones become second nature, and the rarer ones stand out because you do not recognise them.
In the test
This is the largest topic in the bank, so a small gain here goes a long way. Drill the shapes and colours until they need no thought at all.
How this topic appears in the real test
The car theory test is 50 multiple choice questions in 57 minutes, and you need 43 correct to pass. The questions are drawn from every topic, so you cannot skip one and hope. There is a hazard perception part as well, and you have to pass both on the same day.
These are revision questions rather than the questions you will be asked on the day.
Other topics
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This product includes the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) revision question bank.