I tested in Indiana and we had to open the hood and do the full pre-trip on the engine and one side of the trailer, then in cab and 4 point break check. On the skills test it was straight line back, right side offset and right side parallel. You get three free G.O.A.Ls and three free pull ups.... Now your maybe different but hope that helps.
I tested in Indiana as well, and yes we opened the hood. But for the purpose of your question, if you learn things in order and actually memorize them you could do it without lifting the hood. I guarantee I could have done my entire pre trip without even seeing a truck. When I was I my room after class every night I worked on my pretrip, visualizing the parts as I went through. The only time he will ask you a question is if you say your checking a part but do not give the right details. And then only if he is trying to help you.
On the parallel in Indiana (at least where I tested) you will pull up until the back of your trailer is even with the front set of cones and the examiner will blow the whistle for you to stop. Wen you are practicing make sure you are pulling forward far enough. Sometimes people in our class would stop short of those cones. Even if they backed around to the perfect angle they wouldn't really have enough room to work.you also only want to be a foot to a foot and a half from that front cone your driving past when pulling up. Too far away from the cone and by the time you get back to the point of swinging the trailer in you once again won't have enough room.
Once your in position to start backing turn the wheel ONE full rotation to the left.start backing and watch your right mirror. When the edge of the trailer is almost ready to cover the first cone of the back boundary line stop. Turn the wheel all the way to the right and continue to back until the tractor and trailer are back in line with each other. Now here is a critical point to check. When looking out your left mirror down the side of the trailer you should be able to see two cones. The back boundary has three cones, you want to see one that would be next to the street and the middle one but not much more. If you see all three cones or only one cone (again of the BACK boundary line) you are in trouble and for most people need to take a pull up here and get corrected before you go any farther.
If your in the right position go ahead and straight line back until the drivers side corner at the back of the trailer in line with the street side boundary line. Wen you think it's there this is a good place to get out and look. Walk back and see if the corner of the trailer is where you think it is. This is another one of those critical positions your looking for.
If your in the right place you can turn the wheel one full turn to the right (maybe a little more) and now you want to back till the trailer is almost parallel to the box. The things to check here is your left drive tires being back far enough to get into the box when you crank the steering wheel to the left, but not too far back or your right drives will go out the other side.
You should be able to get it from there.
Keep in mind you get 4 FREE pull ups and three get out and looks to cover all three backing tests. The way I understood it is ONLY 3 goals. So do not get out of the truck just to see if you are in the box. If you think you are in set the air breaks and the tester will look. He will either say he can't score it which means you need to make some adjustments or he will get in the truck because its time to move on to the road portion.
If you can get through the straight line back and offset with no get outs and one pull up your in good shape. That gives you the 3 GOALS and you still have 3 free pull ups. After you use the 3 pull ups you can still pull up if needed jus means your using some points when you do. I don't remember exactly but I think it was you could take no more than 10 points in one portion of the range test, and I think pull ups were one point, but they could have been two. Going over the line was 3 pts I believe.
What I am telling you is there are plenty of points available to get through this portion of the test so don't get all worked up when you have to pull up.
Also remember that a pull up counts the same if you pull up 1foot or 50feet, so if you use one pull up far enough to give yourself plenty of room to make the correction. We had a student burn all 4 pull ups on the offset back because he got flustered. If he had pulled all the way up to the green cones on his first pull up he could have straight lined all the way into the offset. Even using all his free ones on the offset he still only missed passing the parallel by 1 point.
And there are no brownie points for not getting out and looking, so get your a$$ out of the truck and check your positions when you need to! Just keep track of them because this is the one time in trucking that you can be punished for getting out and looking, you only get three. But if you use them at the key positions it is plenty.
Sorry if I seemed to ramble at times. This portion of the test is hard to explain on a keyboard without pictures. Hopefully someone else may have another set of check points.
Woody
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So I'm getting really close to the time when I'll be testing in front of the S.o.S. examiner and I'm nervous because I'm not sure exactly what to expect.
I've been told varying things such as the examiner will just randomly tell me what he wants to know about i.e. Steering Components and after I tell him about what I'd look for there he could move into the side of the trailer. I've also been told that I would just preform the Pre-trip as I would explaining to the examiner what I'm looking for and moving on to the next item that I would normally check.
Another thing. My school is teaching me the see it say it method but, if I'm not allowed to open the hood of the truck on test day it'll be kinda hard to not only name some of the things I'm checking but, Also harder to make sure I'm not forgetting something either.
last thing not involving pre-trip. I'll be testing in Indiana and for the skills part I have to do Front stop, Back stop, Off Set to the right side and Parallel park to the right side. I'm doing well on the others but, parallel is kicking my butt and it doesn't help that I'm going to school in Illinois and they teach Front stop, back stop, measured right turn and 45 degree backing... Any tips for parallel? Reference points that I should be looking for in my west coast mirrors?