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Nearly every trainee driver assessment in Britain is assembled from the same two catalogues: an occupational psychology battery of attention, rules and fault-finding tests, and the Vienna Test System, a computerised suite of perception, vigilance and co-ordination tests. Operators choose a handful from each. Which handful varies, the individual tests barely do.

The attention and rules battery

• Group Bourdon (GBT) — grids of dot clusters; you mark every group of exactly four. Concentration under time pressure with errors counted against you. Almost universal.
• SCAAT — Safe Concentration and Attention Test. An alternative to Group Bourdon rather than an addition: same underlying skill, different surface. If your letter names SCAAT and not Group Bourdon, practise Group Bourdon anyway — the habits transfer directly.
• TEA-Occ — the occupational version of the Test of Everyday Attention. Several short subtests built around counting tones and searching a directory page, ending with both at once. Needs working ears; you will be given a headset.
• TRP1 / TRP1b — Trainability for Rules and Procedures. You study a passage of procedure, it is taken away, and you answer questions on it. Some versions include an audio section.
• RAAT — Rules Acquisition Aptitude Test. Essentially TRP with the audio section removed. Prepare for it exactly as you would for TRP1b.
• TRP2 — the checking-order test: dials with arrows over shaded backgrounds, and a priority rule that decides which you would check first, second and last.
• DFFT — Diagnostic Fault Finding Test. A panel of indications, a fault finder guide, and a question about which fault to deal with first. The one test on the day where working carefully beats working fast.
• Mechanical comprehension and numerical tests — used by some operators, usually online before you are invited anywhere. Standard material, widely practised elsewhere.

The Vienna tests

• ATAVT — the adaptive traffic perception test. Road scenes flash up for about a second and you report which categories of object were in them. Adaptive: it gets harder while you are doing well.
• WAFV — the vigilance module of the Vienna perception and attention battery. Half an hour of watching for a rare change. Dull on purpose.
• 2HAND — two-hand co-ordination. Two controls, one dot, one narrow track.
• DT — the Determination Test — colours, tones, buttons and foot pedals at a pace that rises until you start dropping things. Not every operator uses it, and material for it is scarce, which is why there is a guide here.
• RT, LVT, COG — reaction time, visual pursuit and Cognitrone. Shorter tests that sometimes appear alongside the others. Nothing to prepare beyond understanding the instruction and not rushing the response.

Judgement and interview

• SJT — situational judgement, usually asking you to rank four responses to a workplace situation in order of preference.
• SJE — the same idea rated rather than ranked: each response scored on a scale, often with far more scenarios than the ranking version.
• MMI — the multi-modal interview. The structured one at the assessment centre: competency questions against a fixed frame, very often preceded by a pre-interview form you complete with written examples. The form matters more than people think.
• DMI — the drivers' manager interview. A second, longer and far less scripted interview with a manager from your depot, usually later and usually the last stage before the medical. Both are covered in the interview guide.

How to find out which you are getting

1. Read the invite letter properly. Most name the tests outright, and some attach the supplier's own candidate booklet — which is the single best piece of preparation material you will be given, and the one most people skim.
2. Ask the recruiter. It is a reasonable question and asking it costs you nothing. They will not tell you the content; they will usually tell you the names.
3. Ask people who sat it recently at the same operator. Forums carry a lot of this, and it is reliable on format even when it is wrong on detail.

What not to waste time on

• Hunting for the real papers. They are licensed, controlled, and the versions circulating online are either fabrications or years out of date.
• Preparing for tests you will not sit. If your letter does not mention fault finding, DFFT is not where your last week should go.
• Memorising scenario answers. Situational judgement sets rotate, and the scoring keys are not public. Learn the priority order instead; it generalises.