What Is a Mock Driving Test, and Is One Enough?

What happens in the mock test

You are booked as one lesson plus the test. Your instructor collects you before the appointment and the lesson runs straight into the test, so the whole thing is one continuous block in the same car. The lesson has three jobs.

The procedure is explained

Your instructor walks you through what the testing officer will do and in what order, so nothing on the day is a surprise. In Victoria the drive test has two parts: a pre-drive check of the car, then the on-road drive, split into stage one and stage two.

“You must pass stage one in order to progress to stage two.”

Transport Victoria

• Pre-drive check. Before you move, the testing officer asks you to find and operate the car’s controls: indicators, brake lights, horn, headlights on high and low beam, hazard lights, the windscreen washer and wipers, and the park brake. If a control does not work, the test cannot go ahead. Your instructor has you do this in the lesson so you can find everything in that car without hunting for it.
• Stage one. About ten minutes in less challenging conditions. Transport Victoria says it may include starting and stopping the car, left and right turns at intersections and changing lanes, and that it also includes a low speed parking manoeuvre. You have to pass stage one to go on to stage two.
• Stage two. About twenty minutes in busier traffic, assessing that you can carry out normal driving tasks safely. It may include driving in busy traffic, changing lanes, merging with other traffic, and driving on straight and curved roads.
• The two kinds of serious error. An immediate termination error ends the test on the spot, and covers things that put someone at risk: a collision, mounting the kerb while driving, going 5km/h or more over the limit at any point, driving through a stop sign or red light, or being given help by your instructor or the testing officer. A critical error is something potentially unsafe that is not an immediate danger, such as stalling, driving too slowly for the conditions, or rolling through a stop sign without endangering anyone.

You drive a real VicRoads testing route

Each VicRoads office runs its tests on the roads around it, and the tricky intersections, the stage one street where the parking happens and the busier roads used for stage two are all within a few minutes of the front door. Your instructor takes you around that area the way a testing officer would, giving directions in the same style you will hear in the test.

Errors are corrected as they happen

If you fail to head check on a lane change, roll a stop sign or drift over the limit, your instructor pulls you up and explains what the testing officer would have marked. That is the coaching part, and it is real. It is just aimed at the things a competent driver does slightly wrong, not at building the skill from scratch.

What the mock test is not

It is not a driving lesson in the sense of learning to drive. Your driving instructor will happily run through parking with you and tidy it up, but the driving lesson assumes you can already do it. What it is not built for is teaching something from scratch: breaking a habit of looking at the bonnet instead of the road, or building confidence at busy roundabouts. If that is what is needed, the driving lesson before the appointment is the wrong moment to find out, because the appointment is fixed and the test goes ahead whether the lesson went well or not.

It is also not a scored trial run. Your instructor picks out the errors as they happen and explains them, the same way they would in any lesson, but there is no marking sheet and no pass or fail at the end of it. The only test that day is the real one.

Who a single mock test suits

Booking just the one lesson and test works well for someone who already drives well and simply has not sat a Victorian drive test before. Typically that is an overseas licence holder with years of driving behind them, or a driver who let a licence lapse and is coming back to it. For those drivers the value is in the procedure, the local testing area and the instructor’s car, and the mock test delivers exactly that.

There is one more driver it suits, and it is worth saying plainly. You have already sat the VicRoads driving test on your own, once or maybe twice, and it did not go your way. You drive perfectly well and you know it. What the driving lesson beforehand adds is the part that is genuinely hard to get at by yourself: how the test is run and in what order, the roads around that particular office, and a driving instructor next to you who sits tests there week in and week out. Going in alone the first time is not a mistake to feel bad about. It just means nobody had shown you any of that yet.

A learner driver is a different case, even one who has finished the 120 hours. There we recommend 3 to 5 focused driving lessons before the VicRoads driving test, and the mock test is the last of them rather than the only one. That is the same answer you will get on the phone and on our Get Your Ps page, and it does not change because the test is already booked.

If you are honest with yourself and the parking is rusty, or you have not driven much in heavy traffic, or you would like someone to look at your driving before the day it counts, read on.

The safer two-lesson plan

The recommendation we give most often to people who ring about a mock test is to make it two lessons instead of one.

• Lesson one, on a day before the test. A no pressure lesson on the same testing routes with the same instructor. Nothing is riding on it. Your instructor sees how you actually drive, shows you the area, runs the pre-drive check with you and fixes the two or three things that would cost you marks. If something bigger turns up, you still have time to do something about it, including moving the test.
• Lesson two, on the day of the test. The mock test as described above, now as a warm up rather than a first look: a run around the routes, a settle in the car, final questions, and then into the appointment.

It costs one extra lesson and it takes most of the gamble out of the day. If you are choosing between the two, the deciding question is whether you have ever had an experienced instructor watch you drive. If nobody has, the earlier lesson is the one that finds out.

If you need more than two

A learner who still has hours to do, or who needs parking and slow manoeuvres taught rather than tidied up, is better served by a short package of focused lessons in the weeks before the test. How to choose between three and five is covered in How Many Driving Lessons Do You Need Before the VicRoads Test?

Last checked 8 September 2026 against VicRoads and Transport Victoria. Test procedures change, so confirm anything time-critical with VicRoads on 13 11 71.

Common questions

Is a mock driving test the same as the real VicRoads test?

In format, yes. It is run exactly the same way: the pre-drive check first, then stage one, then stage two, on the roads the tests are conducted on. Two things are different. There is no testing officer in the car, and you are not being assessed, so there is no marking sheet and no result at the end. Your driving instructor will tell you plainly how you are driving and will say so if something would fail the test. Everything else about it is identical, which is the whole point of doing it.

How long before my appointment does the mock test run?

It runs back to back with your VicRoads driving test, in the same car, so the two are one continuous block. You choose the length: a 45, 60 or 90-minute driving lesson. The 60-minute option is the usual choice, and 90 minutes gives you more time on the testing roads before the appointment.

Can I learn to reverse park in a mock test?

Yes, your driving instructor will take you through some parking and help you with it. What the mock test assumes is that you can already park, because it is one driving lesson: a brief on what happens in the VicRoads driving test and the correcting of errors as you make them, rather than a lesson for learning something new. If parking needs teaching from scratch, book a driving lesson on an earlier day as well, or take the 90-minute option.

Whose car do I sit the test in?

In a lesson and test package the mock test and the test are both in your instructor’s car, so the car you warm up in is the car you are assessed in.

Is one mock test enough?

It is enough for a driver who already drives well and simply has not sat a Victorian drive test before. If nobody experienced has watched you drive, two lessons is the safer plan: one on an earlier day, then the mock test on the day.