China Driving Theory Exam Information

The computerized theory test consists of up to 100 questions taken from a bank of over 900. The required pass mark is 90%. If you do not pass, you can generally do a second test without paying any further fee. In major cities, these tests are available in Arabic, Russian, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and English. Syllabuses are available from the Public Security Traffic Management Bureau (www.gzjjzd.gov.cn). In smaller places, the officials may insist you do it in Chinese. Some allow you to bring a translator; others do not. It is common that besides just translating, the translator will dictate you correct answers and expect a small fee of not more than 100 yuan. Probably if you're reading this you want to take it in English (good idea!). The questions you see in this app should normally be similar to those that you see on the real test, though on the real test they are occasionally badly translated. We recommend that you supplement your study using this app with reading the syllabuses and any relevant pamplets you can get from the Pulblic Security Traffic Management Bureau as that will best prepare you for unexpected and/or new material.

Generally, but not always, you are excused from the actual driving test if you have a foreign license.

Note: the "old route" of converting foreign licenses to Hong Kong licenses "free" and then from Hong Kong to PRC no longer works! All foreigners, including Hong Kong born people MUST take the written exam if converting the HK driver's license to a mainland one.

The current exam is based around a recent overhaul of the vehicle driver training teaching and examination system in China. The new pool of exam questions has been extensively updated and 90% of the questions are new. The new question bank is not published by the Traffic Management Bureau ... however, this app has it!... or about as close as you will find anywhere (we obviously cannot account for the occasional last minute PRC question bank changes, though we do our best!.

The paperwork (registration for the test, testing, fetching license) is all done in the driving test centre, eg. in Xili for Shenzhen area. It is quite time expensive though, because you have to go there several times. It is often advisable to ask one of the small driving schools, which can be found at every second corner in Shenzhen to do all the paperwork for you.

In most places, private tutoring is allowed given common sense and reasonable care: that means in practice that at least one person in the car must have a valid license but not necessarily the driver.

How To Study Using This App

This app features numerous study and learning mods. There is no 'one size fits all' answer for all learners. We encourage you to experiment until you find a system that works for you. You can learn more about the individual study modes by clicking on the integrated help (?) icon on the test options page.

That said, here's what we generally recommend:

• Start with a small number of chapters/study areas at a time. Master those chapters and then move on to to another set.
• When you first encounter a chapter, try going through the questions in 'flashcard mode.' This is a mode where you see only the question and the correct answer.
• Don't spend too much time in flashcard mode though. Soon, go into a mode like 'Study 1" where you are continuously quizzed on the questions. The brain really learns well by repetitive active study like this. Remember though that the questions at the testing center may vary a bit frow how we have them in the app. Thus, make sure you learn not just the correct answer, but the content as well.
• As you get good at one or a small group of chapters, start studying more chapters in a group.
• Finally, take a few simulated exams where you only get your grade at the end. We've found that most people score similarly on their actual exams as they do on the practice exams, though some consideration has to be made for 'test nerves', the luck of the question draw, and the like.

Laws

In mainland China, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road. Various neighbours — Hong Kong, Macau, India, Nepal and Pakistan — drive on the left.

The official driving code in the People's Republic of China is the Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China. It applies to all vehicles in China except military vehicles.

A vehicle with a government or military, (including police and fire departments) plates are white but occasionally blue, may not follow any rules. It may run a red light or simply go in the wrong direction or weave in and out of traffic.

There is a supplementary regulation to the Road Traffic Safety Law which specifies how specific regulations to the main law are supposed to be carried out.

International Drivers Licenses / Permits are not officially accepted in China, and driving without a Chinese license can get you up to 14 days' imprisonment.

Speed Limits

• 30 km/h (19 mph) on city roads where there is only one lane per direction, 40 km/h (25 mph) on China National Highways;
• up to 70 km/h (43 mph) on city roads where there is a major road with central reservation or two yellow lines or 80 km/h (50 mph) on China National Highways;
• 100 km/h (62 mph) on city express roads; Some of them are signed as 80 km/h.
• 120 km/h (75 mph) on Expressways (be it National or Provincial, or National Highways built to expressway standards). Some of them are signed as 100 km/h or 110 km/h. Heavily enforced (see below).

Penalties for exceeding the speed limits are as follows:

• up to 200 yuan for excess speeds over 10 km/h (6 mph) but under 50% of the speed limit. Example: if driving at 100 km/h (62 mph) in a 80 km/h (50 mph) zone.
• up to 2000 yuan and possible loss of license for excess speeds over 50% of the speed limit. Example: if driving at 190 km/h (118 mph) on a 120 km/h (75 mph) expressway.

Road Conditions

The physical condition of roads and road maintenance varies greatly from municipality to municipality with the Western provinces being poorer than the east-coast and the Guangzhou region. As the building and maintenance of roads are mostly funded by local government, you may notice a sharp change when crossing provincial borders. Places with decent economy have superb infrastructure.

When possible, drive near the middle-right of the road as drain covers are usually stolen. The side of the road could be a mixture of pedestrian, bicycles and tricycles, animals, drain well without covers, and sometimes farmers use part of the road to dry the grains.

Turning off of main roads may require technical off-road driving skills and equipment, and at some places it is illegal.

City Roads

In major city roads traffic is often congested, even on the myriad of city ring roads (except those on the outer fringes of the city). Beijing comes in at the worst (comparatively), despite five ring roads and nine arterial expressways. Shanghai ranks relatively better, with elevated expressways and tunnels.

The congestion is far more complex than that in Western countries. There are crowds of pedestrians to contend with. Bicycles swarm everywhere even in the dark. In recent years, the electric scooter/bike has become quite popular. Economic prosperity has made it affordable for many Chinese to own cars and the number of cars on the road has increased dramatically. In many areas, there are also lots of motorcycles. Three wheeled carts powered by motorcycle engines are also common. In the smaller cities, anything from tractors to bullock carts may turn up! China National Highways

Some National and Provincial Highways are toll roads, despite not expressways. Also note some National Highways are rebuilt to expressway standards, and tolled. Their only difference from National Expressways are red GXXX (e.g. G102 in Beijing) signs instead of green GX/GXX/GXXXX for National Expressways.

• G-level (national-Red Sign) China National Highways are those linking medium-sized cities, usually a pleasure to drive on. The speed limit is 80 km/h (50 mph), but cars sometimes zip at speeds over 100 km/h (62 mph), thanks to the relative absence of speed detection cameras compared to National Expressways. However, many of them are decades old, and due to heavy travel by overweight trucks, have poorer condition, and local government may have ongoing reconstruction of them.
• S-level (provincial-Yellow Sign) highways connects counties, and may be less smooth to drive on. Unlike national highways, sometimes there is no central reservation or road separation, and you may be limited to one lane per direction. However, due to city expansion/some metropolitan area forming, some S-level roads are new, wide roads better than National Highways.
• X-level (county-White Sign, although rarely displayed) highways are those linking townships. Not necessarily the worst to drive on, but they are challenging. More challenging are township-level highways. Some of these roads may be in areas officially cordoned off to the visiting foreigner.

Expressways

National Expressways are China's equivalent of Interstate, a massive network similar to National Highways. Unlike US, few National Highways are absorbed by it (e.g. G312 between Hefei and Nanjing), so there are two full-fledged networks, with Expressways much better but have tighter restriction on vehicles. Almost ALL Expressways are tolled (there are also Provincial Expressways, not much different, and a new National expressway may be formed out of several provincial expressways just by changing planning and signs)

National Expressways are marked by G and 1, 2 or 4 digits, Provincial with S instead.

Expressways and express routes in China are a godsend, with traffic signs in both English and Chinese, emergency facilities, service areas, sufficient filling stations, plenty of exits, high speed limits, and the relative lack of traffic jams. However, when one does occur expect to wait several hours or in rare cases even days for the traffic to clear as damaged cars or trucks or usually not taken off the roadway after the accident resulting in kilometer upon kilometer of jammed roadways. Furthermore, this will result in drivers jockeying for position and jamming the emergency shoulder adding further waiting time to the traffic jam and potentially more accidents. Traffic jams once exceeded 100km on G6 (reconstruction and closure occurred on parallel G110 National Highway, affecting travel between Beijing, Zhangjiakou and Inner Mongolia, with no other option other than G6 at that time), making worldwide news.

Although in English, both express routes and expressways are referred to as "expressways", their Chinese counterparts are named differently. "Express routes" are written ????, whereas expressways are written as ????. The idea is that express routes operate within a metropolitan area, but expressways do the national work, liaising from one centre to another. However, the difference is now not clear, with expressways sometimes have a speed limit of 110 or 100 instead of standard 120. City-road like express routes are also being called expressways, such as Tongzhou-Yanjiao Expressway in Beijing, and Airport Expressway in many cities.

Expressway can function as a city road in very large cities, the most notorious is Badaling Expressway (now part of G6), connecting central Beijing, Changping and Yanqing. It's one of the most crowded roads in Beijing, and by no means "express" during rush hours.

Do not believe the name of a Expressway. The destination in the name may be unreachable, since construction on different portions may not be synchronous. HanCai(HanYang-Caidian S15 Hubei) Expressway connects HanYang with western cities in Hubei, but once did not have a exit on Caidian in the middle, resulting confused drivers having to detour. G4(Beijing-Hong Kong) would not lead you directly to Hong Kong but terminates at Shenzhen city centre, near a checkpoint. JingTai Expressway (G3)...the "Tai" indeed refers to Taiwan, with a imaginary tunnel under Taiwan Strait (it connects Beijing to Fuzhou anyway, and was once simply called JingFu Expressway, but even by this account, Jian'Ou-Fuzhou portion is still incomplete. However, the network is dense and it's straightforward to use G25 and G70 to cover it)

	Are the tests in English?
	Yes the Chinese Authorities give you the option to take the exam in English. That said, occasionally some of the questions are poorly translated from Chinese into English, leading to a bit of ambiguity. Our exam prep app questions emulate the sometimes stilted English language that you will encounter in the actual test.
	I heard the authorities just updated their questions. Do you have the 'new' questions?
	Yes! Our apps now have all or essentially all of the new questions. These include heavy new emphasis on tricky regulatory questions.
	Do you include all possible quesitons?
	While strictly speaking nobody can guarantee that they have all of the questions, and chances are that you will see some new things that the authorities have capriciously put in there out of the blue, we believe that our prep is far superior to others out there since we uniquely have the new questions, in English that are now in use. Because we had to translate some of these from Chinese, our translated questions will likely vary slightly from the official translations, but our users can typically expect to see very familiar questions on their actual test, including answer choices and correct answers very very similar to if not exactly like in our app.
	I heard you can just study using a prep book.
	That's old information that no longer holds true. When the questions were updated to make the test harder, most prep books and websites became instantly obsolete.
	I heard you can just study using a prep book.
	That's old information that no longer holds true. When the questions were updated to make the test harder, most prep books and websites became instantly obsolete.
	I am Chinese citizen - can I use your prep?
	As far as we know, Chinese citizens also have the option to take the test in English, so, yes, we think so (though you might want to double check with the authorities).
	Please describe the purchase process (PC).
	Our PC software is sold on a "try before you buy" basis. This means that you are free to download the software from our website, install it on your PC, and try it out. Before you register (purchase) it, however, the software will be locked in a demo mode in which only 5% of the questions are available. This will be enough to let you get a feel for the software, but not enough to actually prepare you in any serious way for your test. To unlock the rest of the content, you can visit the order page to complete the order process. When your payment has been made, an unlock keycode will be sent to you via e-mail. You enter this unlock keycode into the software to unlock the full content the test banks of your choice. Thank you for your understanding that due to the nature of the electronic sales process and because the software is available on a try before you buy basis, once the purchase has been made, it is not reversible.
	Please describe the purchase process (iPhone/iPad, Mac, and/or Android).
	Each of these app versions is available for direct purchase via the official app store / market for that device. Use the links above to go directly to the app pages in the various app stores.
	How long is my purchase good for?
	Your purchase is, in essence, good for life. Furthermore, we allow you to update the app to the newest available version, FREE, at any time. This is of course not a guarantee that 100 years from now we will still be updating the software, but it does say that whenever we do, you will have access to it. To wit, we have users who have been using our GroundSchool FAA (USA) software for more than a decade now with free updates since their original purchase. However, there is a catch: when you purchase this software, it is for your own, personal use only. You may NOT share this with friends, coworkers, etc. Please direct such people to purchase their own copy! We hope that you find this tradeoff to be fair - in exchange for free upgrades and no set time limit, you agree not to share this software inappropriately. Free upgrades means that in the future you can use this software to review or brush up.
	What is the price in my local currency?
	The prices for our apps are listed in US Dollars (USD). As you go through the order process, you will see in a later screen the actual total price displayed in your local currency. Yon can pay in (almost) any currency you'd like.
	Can I order by Phone, Cheque, PayPal, etc?
	We offer a wide range of purchase options in your choice of currencies. The Digital River order system allows for a large number of ways to order. To order, for example, by phone, just start the order process online. Then, when you get to the payment stage, it will ask you about payment method - here you will see the full list of choices.
	Do I have to be online to use the app?
	No, you don't. An Internet connection is only reequired for initial download of the app and to get updates. So, for example, you can use it to study while sitting in a passenger seat of an airline flight without an Internet connection no problem.
If you have any further questions we are happy to help you via our online helpdesk.

GOOD LUCK IN YOUR STUDIES AND DRIVE SAFE!