Pretrip Inspection (Or How I Figured Out I'm Going To Need To Study REALLY Hard)

The Pre-Trip is actually better than rote learning. Rote learning is when you have to recite the Preamble of the Consitituion in your 7th grade history class.

Doing the Pre-trip, you are looking at things, which should key you into one of the few responses you make. You need to know what to look at, such as the alternator, the leaf springs, the hoses, the U-bolts (and the 4 nuts), etc. You check them and then just state "Properly Mounted and Secure. Not Cracked, Bent, or Broken" and "Properly Mounted and Secure at both ends. No Abrasions, Bulges or Cuts and not leaking".

True, although I did say that the pre-trip will give you some understanding of how the parts work. Calling it rote learning kind of fit the description of the majority of my experience when I was memorizing the info - it was mostly memorizing and recitation for me. In fact, we didn't even have the hood open during our pre-trip exam for the examiner, so it was largely recitation without physically pointing at parts.

That's another tip I will use for when the examiner comes. I am doing the index cards now as well. Started studying them a few days ago.

You don't have to know how things work, you just have to know the components and say that they are properly secured, no leaks, and no damage. Those are the key words that apply to just about everything. Of course knowing how they all work is good to know later on when you are actually pretripping your truck.

I'm a student at Prime Have one week on the road and am awesome at pretrip. A chips thing to remember. ..everything is properly mounted and secure. ..if metal it is not cracked bent or broken....if rubber it's no abrasions bulges or cuts...learns what leaks. The cool thing is that many of the engine parts are the same for the drive tires and trailer....Brake chamber...spring mount...spring leaf --it's spring arm in back.....but the brakes and tire parts are the same. ...learn it in sections. ...lean the names of the parts now. .where they are will differ from truck to truck...and I loved the apex video...it did help a ton. Now if I could just downshift