How many questions are on the Pennsylvania DMV written test?

18. You need 15 correct to pass, so you can miss 3.

Is the Pennsylvania written test available in Spanish?

Pennsylvania offers the knowledge test in English, Spanish and Chinese.

Are these the real DMV questions?

No — and nobody who has them is allowed to publish them. Every question here is written from the official driver handbook and the federal MUTCD sign standard, which is what the real test is written from too.

Is this Pennsylvania practice test free?

Yes. Every question on this page is free, with no account and no email.

What is the correct response to this sign?

Slow down, watch for people on or beside the roadway, and be ready to stop

Move onto the shoulder so the crew can use the travel lane

Sound your horn to alert the crew as you pass

Hold your speed, since workers are always behind a barrier

Where must you stop when a red light is showing and the intersection has a marked stop line?

With your front wheels on the stop line

In the crosswalk, if it is empty

Wherever you can see cross traffic best

You are travelling on a two-lane road with a solid yellow line on your side and a broken yellow line on the other. What may you do?

You may not pass; oncoming traffic may

You may pass but oncoming traffic may not

You are parked at the kerb on a street with a bike lane and are about to open your door. You should:

Check over your shoulder and in the mirror for cyclists before opening

Open the door quickly so it is exposed for less time

Open the door slightly and wait

What does this sign prohibit?

Passing another vehicle on the right

Turning right while the signal is red

Moving into the right-hand lane

In heavy rain, at night, or when following a motorcycle, your following distance should be:

Two seconds, to keep traffic flowing

You arrive at an intersection where all the traffic lights are completely dark because of a power failure. What should you do?

Proceed without stopping, since there is no red light

Yield only to traffic on your right

Wait until the lights come back on

You are approaching an intersection and can see the back of a sign facing the cross street. It is an octagon. What do you know about the traffic on that street?

They have a stop sign and must stop

They have a yield sign and may roll through

They have the right-of-way over you

The sign could be any regulatory message

Two solid white lines are painted across the roadway at an intersection, parallel to each other and running from one side of the road to the other. They mark:

A crosswalk, where people on foot may cross the road

The stop line, showing where you must stop for a red light

A pedestrian is crossing against the signal, clearly in the wrong. What should you do?

Yield anyway and avoid the collision

Proceed, since you have the right-of-way

Sound your horn and maintain speed

A yellow diamond-shaped sign like this one tells you that:

There is a hazard or a change in road conditions ahead

A law is being enforced at this point

You are entering a construction zone

There is a service or rest area nearby

What does this five-sided sign mean?

A school area or school crossing is ahead, so watch for children and be ready to slow or stop

A playground is somewhere in the neighborhood

You must come to a complete stop at this sign

Children are present here only during the summer months

Pennsylvania DMV Practice Test 2026

Take a free Pennsylvania DMV practice test built on the state's real written exam: 18 questions, 15 correct to pass. Every answer explained. No sign-up.

Verified against the official handbook · 2026-08-06

18
Questions on the test: 15
Correct answers to pass: 3
Wrong answers allowed: 238
question bank

Pennsylvania cheat sheetEvery number you have to memorise, on one page.

The real exam

18 questions. 15 correct to pass — you may miss 3.

Questions on the test	18
Correct answers to pass	15
Wrong answers allowed	3
Time limit	None published
Minimum permit age	16 years old

Official handbook — Pennsylvania

Practice questions

20 questions, answered right here. Tap an option to see why.

0 of 20 answeredScore: 0/2017 to pass

1.
What is the correct response to this sign?
Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Slow down, watch for people on or beside the roadway, and be ready to stop
People on foot may be working within a step of the travel lane, and equipment can back into it without warning. Slowing is what buys you the reaction time to avoid someone who moves unexpectedly.
Believing cones or drums protect the crew. They mark the zone; they stop nothing, and many work zones have no barrier at all.
2.
Where must you stop when a red light is showing and the intersection has a marked stop line?
Not quiteCorrect answer: A — Before the stop line
The order of stopping points is the stop line, then the crosswalk, then the near edge of the intersection — you stop before the first one you meet.
Creeping forward for a better view puts the car in the crosswalk, exactly where people walk and where turning trucks need the space.
3.
You are travelling on a two-lane road with a solid yellow line on your side and a broken yellow line on the other. What may you do?
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — You may not pass; oncoming traffic may
Each direction reads the line nearest to it. Solid on your side forbids passing for you, and the broken line gives the other direction permission.
Seeing a broken line anywhere in the centre reads as "passing allowed here". The line on your own side is the one that governs you.
4.
You are parked at the kerb on a street with a bike lane and are about to open your door. You should:
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Check over your shoulder and in the mirror for cyclists before opening
A door opened into a bike lane leaves a cyclist no room to react. A shoulder check covers the blind spot a mirror does not.
Mirrors are adjusted for traffic lanes, not for the kerb-side strip a bicycle occupies.
5.
What does this sign prohibit?
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Turning right at this location
A red circle with a diagonal slash over a symbol prohibits whatever the symbol shows. Here the symbol is a right-turn arrow, so the right turn itself is banned — at any time and on any signal, unless a plaque limits the hours.
Confusing it with NO TURN ON RED, which only bars the turn while the light is red. This sign bars the turn altogether.
6.
In heavy rain, at night, or when following a motorcycle, your following distance should be:
Not quiteCorrect answer: D — Four seconds or more
Three seconds is the minimum for a good day. Poor traction, poor visibility, a heavy load, or a vehicle that can stop faster than you all mean adding time.
Drivers treat three seconds as a maximum requirement rather than a floor for ideal conditions.
7.
You arrive at an intersection where all the traffic lights are completely dark because of a power failure. What should you do?
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Treat it as a four-way stop
A signal that is completely dark is legally treated as a four-way stop. Every driver stops, then proceeds in the order they arrived, yielding to whoever got there first.
A dark signal is not the same as a green light or an uncontrolled intersection — you must stop.
8.
You are approaching an intersection and can see the back of a sign facing the cross street. It is an octagon. What do you know about the traffic on that street?
Not quiteCorrect answer: A — They have a stop sign and must stop
The octagon is reserved for one sign in the entire system: STOP. No other sign may use that outline, so the shape alone tells you the cross traffic must stop.
Some drivers assume shape only hints at a category. Six shapes — octagon, downward triangle, circle, pennant, pentagon and crossbuck — are locked to a single sign each.
9.
Two solid white lines are painted across the roadway at an intersection, parallel to each other and running from one side of the road to the other. They mark:
Not quiteCorrect answer: A — A crosswalk, where people on foot may cross the road
A pair of transverse lines marks the crossing space set aside for pedestrians. You stop before it, never inside it, so that people crossing are not forced around your vehicle.
A crosswalk is confused with a stop line, which is a single wide line across your lane. Stopping on the pair pushes pedestrians into the moving lane beside you.
10.
A pedestrian is crossing against the signal, clearly in the wrong. What should you do?
Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Yield anyway and avoid the collision
Right-of-way is something you give, not something you take. Every handbook states that a driver must take reasonable care to avoid a pedestrian regardless of fault.
"I had right-of-way" is a legal argument, not a defence against hitting someone.
11.
A yellow diamond-shaped sign like this one tells you that:
Not quiteCorrect answer: A — There is a hazard or a change in road conditions ahead
Yellow diamonds are general warning signs: a curve, a merge, a hill or another hazard is ahead. They advise you to slow down and prepare, but they do not by themselves carry a legal speed limit.
Orange diamonds — not yellow — mean a work zone. Same shape, different colour, different meaning.
12.
What does this five-sided sign mean?
Not quiteCorrect answer: D — A school area or school crossing is ahead, so watch for children and be ready to slow or stop
The five-sided pentagon shape is used for school warning signs and nothing else, so the outline alone identifies it from a distance. Children step off curbs without checking, so cover the brake and scan both sides of the road.
Expecting the sign itself to require a stop. It is a warning; where a lower school speed limit applies it is posted separately on its own sign.
13.
Traffic ahead is backed up past a railroad crossing. What does this sign require of you?
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Wait before the tracks until there is room for your whole vehicle on the far side
You must not enter a crossing unless you can clear it completely. A train cannot stop or swerve, and a car trapped on the tracks has no escape.
The instinct in stopped traffic is to close the gap. That instinct is what puts vehicles on the tracks when the queue does not move.
14.
Regulatory signs that use a symbol to prohibit something — no left turn, no bicycles, no U-turn — normally use which shape?
Not quiteCorrect answer: D — A square
Symbol prohibition signs are squares carrying a black symbol crossed by a red circle and slash. The diamond is kept for warnings, the downward triangle for YIELD and the pentagon for school zones, so the outline alone tells you which family a sign belongs to.
Expecting every prohibition to be red like the STOP sign. Most prohibitions are black on a white square; only the circle and slash are red.
15.
An orange sign at the roadside means:
Not quiteCorrect answer: B — You are approaching a work zone, where fines are often doubled
Orange is reserved for temporary traffic control in construction and maintenance zones. Expect workers, lane shifts and reduced speed limits; many states double the fines for violations inside a work zone.
Orange does not mean the road is closed — it means conditions have temporarily changed.
16.
Where should you position your vehicle before making a right turn?
Not quiteCorrect answer: D — As close as practical to the right kerb
Being close to the kerb stops another vehicle or a cyclist coming up on your right, and keeps the turn tight enough to stay in the correct lane.
Swinging wide before a right turn confuses everyone behind you and invites someone into the gap you just opened.
17.
This pennant-shaped sign appears on the LEFT side of the road. Why is it placed there rather than on the right?
Not quiteCorrect answer: B — It marks the start of a no-passing zone, and the left side is where a passing driver would be looking
The pennant is the only warning sign mounted on the left. It marks the beginning of a no-passing zone and is placed where a driver who is about to pull out to pass will actually be looking.
Its position does not mean it applies to someone else — it applies to you, and it is a legal restriction, not just advice.
18.
This small sign is mounted on the post of a crossbuck at a railway crossing. What is it telling you to do?
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Check the track in both directions for an approaching train before you cross
The LOOK sign is used at crossings that have no gates and no flashing lights. Nothing there will tell you a train is coming, so the driver's own look along the track — in both directions — is the only protection at that crossing.
Waiting to be warned. At a crossing with no active warning device, no signal will ever start; silence does not mean the track is clear.
19.
In Pennsylvania, an "active work zone" is the portion of a work zone where:
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Workers are on the roadway or on the shoulder next to an open travel lane
The definition turns on people being present beside live traffic, which is what the heavier penalties are protecting.
A coned-off area with nobody in it is not an active work zone, but the reduced limit may still apply.
20.
On a winter road, which surface is most likely to be icy while the rest of the road is merely wet?
Not quiteCorrect answer: C — A bridge or overpass
A bridge is exposed to cold air above and below, so it loses heat from both sides and freezes before the road on either end of it.
The transition is invisible and arrives at speed, which is why bridges carry a dedicated warning sign in cold regions.

Practice by topic

See all 84 road signs and what they mean

Questions people ask

How many questions are on the Pennsylvania DMV written test?: 18. You need 15 correct to pass, so you can miss 3.
What score do you need to pass in Pennsylvania?: 15 out of 18 — 83%.
How old do you have to be to get a learner's permit in Pennsylvania?: 16 years old.
Is the Pennsylvania written test available in Spanish?: Pennsylvania offers the knowledge test in English, Spanish and Chinese.
Are these the real DMV questions?: No — and nobody who has them is allowed to publish them. Every question here is written from the official driver handbook and the federal MUTCD sign standard, which is what the real test is written from too.
Is this Pennsylvania practice test free?: Yes. Every question on this page is free, with no account and no email.

Where this comes from

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), 11th Edition — U.S. Federal Highway Administration
MUTCD sign artwork on Wikimedia Commons — Wikimedia Commons — files created by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration
California Driver Handbook — California DMV
Texas Driver Handbook — Texas Department of Public Safety
Florida Driver License Handbook — Florida HSMV
New York State Driver's Manual — New York State DMV
Illinois Rules of the Road — Illinois Secretary of State
Pennsylvania Driver's Manual — PennDOT

Independent study aid. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any Department of Motor Vehicles or government agency. Questions are written from the official handbooks listed above; no exam result is guaranteed.

The real exam

Practice questions

What is the correct response to this sign?

Where must you stop when a red light is showing and the intersection has a marked stop line?

You are travelling on a two-lane road with a solid yellow line on your side and a broken yellow line on the other. What may you do?

You are parked at the kerb on a street with a bike lane and are about to open your door. You should:

What does this sign prohibit?

In heavy rain, at night, or when following a motorcycle, your following distance should be:

You arrive at an intersection where all the traffic lights are completely dark because of a power failure. What should you do?

You are approaching an intersection and can see the back of a sign facing the cross street. It is an octagon. What do you know about the traffic on that street?

Two solid white lines are painted across the roadway at an intersection, parallel to each other and running from one side of the road to the other. They mark:

A pedestrian is crossing against the signal, clearly in the wrong. What should you do?

A yellow diamond-shaped sign like this one tells you that:

What does this five-sided sign mean?

Traffic ahead is backed up past a railroad crossing. What does this sign require of you?

Regulatory signs that use a symbol to prohibit something — no left turn, no bicycles, no U-turn — normally use which shape?

An orange sign at the roadside means:

Where should you position your vehicle before making a right turn?

This pennant-shaped sign appears on the LEFT side of the road. Why is it placed there rather than on the right?

This small sign is mounted on the post of a crossbuck at a railway crossing. What is it telling you to do?

In Pennsylvania, an "active work zone" is the portion of a work zone where:

On a winter road, which surface is most likely to be icy while the rest of the road is merely wet?

Practice by topic

Questions people ask

Choose your state

Where this comes from