CDL School Bus Practice Test
Almost everything dangerous about a school bus happens when it is not moving. Children are hurt getting on and off far more often than in crashes, usually by the bus itself or by a car that did not stop. That is why this endorsement spends most of its time on ten metres of road around a stationary vehicle.
20 questions, 16 right to pass. Free, untimed, no account.
Correct · A
How far ahead of the front bumper of a school bus can the danger zone reach?
- Up to 30 feet Correct answer
- Up to 10 feet
- Up to 15 feet
- Up to 50 feet
Texas Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Handbook, 10.1.1 Danger Zones, p. 10-1
School Bus practice test: quick facts
What this practice test does. Your state's own numbers are cited separately.
- Questions per test
- 20
- Right answers to pass
- 16
- Time limit
- None
- Cost
- FreeNo account, no card, no limit on retries
- Questions in the bank
- 72Drawn fresh every time you start
- Every answer cited
- YesDocument, section and page on each one
- Last reviewed
- September 2026Re-checked against the source once a year
- Written from
- Texas Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Handbook
What this test covers
Every subject below has cited questions behind it. The number is how many are in the bank right now, and each draw is weighted across them.
- School buses 72
How hard the bank is
Every test you start pulls a mix, so you get the easy marks and the ones people actually fail on.
- Straightforward 15
- Moderate 40
- Hard 17
Sample School Bus questions
Real questions from the bank, with the answer and the page it came from. Open a few, then take the test properly.
How far ahead of the front bumper of a school bus can the danger zone reach?
- Up to 30 feet
- Up to 10 feet
- Up to 15 feet
- Up to 50 feet
The danger zone in front of the bus can extend as much as 30 feet from the front bumper. A driver who only clears the first few feet has checked a fraction of the area where a child can be struck by the bus itself.
Within the danger zone ahead of the bus, which stretch of ground is the most dangerous for a child on foot?
- The first 10 feet out from the front bumper
- The last 10 feet, roughly 20 to 30 feet out
- The middle stretch, roughly 10 to 20 feet out
- The whole 30 feet is equally dangerous
The front danger zone reaches about 30 feet, but the first 10 feet is the most dangerous part of it, because a child that close is low and near the bumper where direct vision does not reach.
How far out from the left and right sides of a school bus, and behind the rear bumper, does the danger zone extend?
- 10 feet
- 5 feet
- 15 feet
- 30 feet
The danger zone runs 10 feet out from each side of the bus and 10 feet behind the rear bumper. Only the area in front of the bus is larger, at up to 30 feet.
Why is the area to the left of a stopped school bus treated as dangerous at every stop, even when no student is on that side?
- Passing cars use it, so it is always a hazard
- The stop signal arm swings through it
- The driver has no mirror covering that side
- Students are told to gather there before crossing
The left side of the bus is always considered dangerous because of passing traffic. That risk does not depend on where the students are standing, so the driver treats it as a hazard at every stop.
When the outside flat mirrors are correctly adjusted, how far back along the roadway should the driver be able to see?
- 200 feet, or about four bus lengths
- 100 feet, or about two bus lengths
- 400 feet, or about eight bus lengths
- 50 feet, or about one bus length
The flat mirrors at the front corners are adjusted to show 200 feet or roughly four bus lengths behind the bus, along with the sides of the bus and the rear tires touching the ground.
Besides the roadway behind and the sides of the bus, which part of the bus itself must appear in a correctly adjusted outside flat mirror?
- The rear tires touching the ground
- The front tires touching the ground
- The rear bumper and the emergency door
- The stop signal arm in its extended position
A flat mirror that shows the rear tires touching the ground gives the driver a fixed reference for where the bus actually is, which is what makes the rest of the mirror view usable for judging clearance.
The blind spot directly behind the rear bumper starts about 50 to 150 feet back. Depending on the size of the bus, how far can it reach?
- Up to 400 feet
- Up to 200 feet
- Up to 250 feet
- Up to 1,000 feet
The blind spot behind the bus begins somewhere between 50 and 150 feet and can run to 400 feet on a long, wide bus. A vehicle sitting in it is invisible, which is why the driver keeps scanning rather than glancing once.
A child is standing immediately below and just in front of the left outside flat mirror. What will that mirror show the driver?
- Nothing, because that area is a blind spot for the flat mirror
- The child, but smaller and further away than they really are
- The child clearly, since it is the mirror covering that area
- Only the child's feet at the bottom edge of the mirror
Each outside flat mirror has a blind spot immediately below and in front of it. Covering that ground is the job of the crossover mirror, which is why both have to be checked before the bus moves.
How to use this test
-
Take it cold, once
Do not revise first. You want to know which subjects are actually weak, and a clean run tells you that in ten minutes.
-
Read the reason, not the score
The explanation for each answer opens on the next page with its handbook page. That is the bit that makes it stick.
-
Retry only what you missed
The result page has a button for exactly that. Far faster than sitting the whole thing again.
-
Come back on another day
A different draw each time exposes different gaps. Two runs a week beats ten in one evening.
Why this one is different
You can check every answer
Document, section and page on all of them, plus the date it was read. Nothing goes live without all four.
Nothing is behind a paywall
Every question in the bank is free, every time. There is no premium tier holding the hard ones back.
Scored by subject
You find out which topic is costing you marks, not just a number out of 20.
More about this test
The danger zone
The area around the bus where the driver cannot see a child, and where a child is most likely to be, is the single most examined idea on this test. Where it extends to, how far a child should walk ahead of the bus before crossing, what you do when a student drops something and goes back for it, and how you count students off and back on again. The questions are specific because the consequences are.
Mirror adjustment belongs to the same subject. The crossover mirrors exist to show you the ground directly in front of the bumper, and a bus with them set wrongly is a bus with a blind spot exactly where a small child stands.
Loading and unloading procedure
There is a sequence, and it is tested as a sequence. Where you stop, when the warning lights go on, when the stop arm goes out, when you open the door, how you signal a student to cross and what you do if a car ignores the stop arm. Every step exists because something went wrong once without it.
Crossings, emergencies and evacuation
School buses stop at railroad crossings under stricter rules than trucks, with a set procedure for approaching, stopping, looking and crossing. Evacuation is its own subject: when to evacuate at all, when staying on the bus is safer, which exit to use, and how far away to move the group. Post crash procedure and how to secure a bus full of children before you deal with anything else are on the test too.
How to use this practice test
Twenty questions are drawn fresh from the bank each time you start. Answer one and the reason opens on the next page, with the section and page it was read from. Your score is split across loading, crossings, emergencies and inspection, so you can see which part needs the work, and the retry button takes only the questions you got wrong.
You need the passenger endorsement too
School bus sits on top of passenger, so you take both. Do passenger first, because this test assumes you already know the general rules about carrying people and spends its time on what is specific to children.
Also worth reading
Last reviewed September 2026. Sources are re-checked against their publishers once a year.
Questions about this test
Do I need the passenger endorsement as well as school bus?
What is the danger zone on a school bus?
How many questions are on the school bus test?
Are the railroad crossing rules stricter for school buses?
When should I evacuate a school bus?
Is there a separate skills test for a school bus?
Still not sure?
Every question names the document and page behind it, so a wrong answer is something you can prove rather than argue about.
Other tests to take
Ready when you are.
20 questions drawn fresh from 72 cited ones. No account, nothing to pay, and every question in the bank is free.