Driver Qualification Test (DQT) NSW Questions / Tips NSW

Today (16-07-2014 that is) i did the Driver Qualification Test (DQT for short) in New South Wales. This is the final test which allows you to progress to a full license. Thankfully i passed, due to some very helpful websites. I'd thought i'd share how i passed i.e. give you possible multiple choice questions they can ask in Part 1( Knowledge Test) and tips on Part 2 which is the Hazard Perception Test.

As you may already know, Part 1 consists of 15 multiple choice questions with 4 choices for each question. Part 2 (HPT) contains 10 questions based on 10 videos where you have to either point out hazards by slowing down, when it is safe to turn right, and when it is safe to overtake. Simple really. :)

Below is a list of questions I've compiled scouring the web. Study these well and read the summary points at the end of each chapter in the DQT handbook (downloadable from here: DQT Handbook ). That should be more than enough. I ended up getting 15/15 for this section on 3 hours worth of study, the night before.

To calm your nerves, this is what i can tell you: Don't stress at all! This section is way too easy! If you have a shred of common sense and read the multiple choice questions below you'll complete Part 1 in under 7 minutes with flying colors! Here are the questions:

Section 1 DQT

When do most accidents occur? 

- In fine weather on sealed roads in the day time

Where do most costs associated with car crashes go?

- 24% to the long term care of injured people

- 21% to maintaining victims quality of life

If you slow down from 70km/h to 60km/h you will:
- Need 30% less distance to stop

A person with a BAC (blood alcohol content) of 0.05 is:
- Is twice as likely to crash than someone with a BAC of 0.0

Male drivers are more likely to be distracted when
- Driving with other males of similar age

Most fatigue related crashes occur
- on country roads

The risk of crashing

- doubles for every 5km over the speed limit

If you are driving in dark and foggy conditions
- leave a gap of at least 4 seconds

People who let their emotions dictate their driving are usually
- young males

What is the percentage chance of killing a pedestrian at 60km/h?
- 70%

What percentage of fatigue related crashes happen on metropolis roads?
- 25%

What are the fatigue crash risk hours?
- 4-8am and 12-2pm

What percentage of crashes are fatigue related?
- 18%

A combination of human error and other factors
- Account for 90% of road accidents

More than half the drivers killed by alcohol
- Have a blood alcohol content of 0.15 (3x the legal limit)

What percentage of accidents happen in high alcohol hours?
- 30%

How long does it take to break in a 60km/h zone?
- 0.75 seconds to see the hazard and 0.75 to break, so a total of 1.5 seconds

Dangerous driving has a maximum prison sentence term of:
- 10 years

Negligent driving has a maximum prison term of:
- 18 months

By how much is your field of vision reduced at 100km/h?
- By more than a third (stationary field of vision is 180 degrees, at 100km/h it is approx 50 degrees)

Alcohol is a contributing factor in:
- 20% of crashes in NSW

Speed is a factor in:
- 40% of crashes in NSW

Crashes involving full license drivers occur between vehicles in opposing directions
- 16% of the time

Crashes are most common in:
- 60km/h speed zones

Crashes are most likely to occur:
- Between Mon-Fri 9-3pm

What is the most common collision between a car and motorcycle?
- When another vehicle turns across the path of the motorcycle.

When do most speed related crashes occur?
- At night.

High Alcohol hours are:
Answer – Weeknights (Thu, Fri) and Weekends

Percentage of Fatigue-related crashes on country roads?

-Answer: 75%

You need to go to page 70 of the handbook and study the two pictures to figure out what 3-second distance and 4-second distance looks like. I had an animation with 4-seconds

If you are driving in dark and foggy conditions, you should:

-Answer: Travel four seconds or more

I had a diagram where you were driving behind a truck at night (broken lines and one lane), what would you do? and the options were:

• Accelerate and driver closer, then drive slowly (i think)
• Drive slowly only
• Drive slowly and keep a fair distance from other vehicles
• Drive normally or keep same speed. 

Crash research shows that drivers make a NEAR crash mistake every:

-Answer: 800km

Shows you a picture of a car behind a truck. You’re traveling behind a truck what gaps should you have between you the trunk: 

• 4 second
• 3 second
• 1 second
• 2 second

Research have shown that experience drivers usually have an accident in urban area due to

• driving in peak hours
• something
• not looking ahead far enough
• can’t remember this option

What is involved in a scanning?

• using your eyes to look ahead for
• using your eyes and or moving your head to look ahead, to the sides and to the back
• using your eyes to look to the sides
• using your head to look to the sides

Shows you a picture of a reversing car, on its left there is a man walking a dog. How can the driver check the blind spot?

• look to the left
• look to the right
• look to the left and to the right
• look at the car mirrors

What are the causes of fatigue?

• working long hours
• driving far and working long hours
• driving far
• drinking coffee ( i think)

What contributes the most to an accident?

• human errors
• environment
• car servicing
• it was probably condition or something

Picture where ambulance/police is driving right in the middle of two opposing lanes and coming towards your vehicle. What should you do?

-Brake and move to the left. (there was a “slow down” option but the ambulance was quite close so you had to move to the side)

I had the diagram of the 360 degree view around the car and it asked what color is the blind sport area.

How far ahead should you be looking as part of a scanning routine?

• 4 sec
• 8 sec
• 2 sec
• 12 sec

Why is it more dangerous to travel at high speeds (100km or more)?

-A: It narrows your field of vision.

What is covering the brake?

-Lifting your right foot off the accelerator and placing it above the brake ready to push down in case conditions change

Which may affect ability: 

-Marijuana + Cold Tablets

What should be distance between parked car and moving car: 

-Answer: 1 meter

What is a good scanning procedure?

-Constantly doing a head check to cover blind spots, looking ahead.

Why are women less likely to have a collision? 

-Not over confident drivers

What is fatigue? 

-feeling tired, exhausted, sleepy

What makes you a safer driver, and the answer is something like:

-accept what is your fault.

If someone tailgates you, 

-you should slow down so you can force the car behind you to slow down

Which group of people have the highest risk of crashing:

-People who drive to get rid of their boredom

What is the biggest distraction while driving

• a) lighting a cigarette
• b) talking on the mobile phone
• c) other passengers

You are driving on a 3 lane freeway in between two trucks. The speed limit is 100km/h and both trucks are travelling at 100km/h. You should:

• A. Accelerate and pull in front of the blue truck (on the left)
• B. Slow down and pull in behind the red truck (on the right)
• C. Slow down and pull in behind the blue truck (on the left)
• D. Some stupid answer -use your mobile to call the truck driver and tell him to slow down.

Well, there you have it. More than 50 questions which they can ask you. Again, trust me, there is no need to worry about this section. There will always be 3 extremely stupid answers; you'd think they employed monkeys to create Part 1. Common sense and a read through the above questions is all you need.

For section 2 of the DQT i.e. the Hazard Perception Test, i will below give different scenarios/tips which they can ask you. They have all appeared in the HPT. The questions are divided into either overtaking, slowing down or turning right. I also suggest you have a read through section 3 of the DQT handbook and also do the questions from the South Australia website which gives practice HPT questions ( they are extremely similar to what they give you here in the NSW DQT). Also a notable difference is, that instead of pressing once, you will be required to touch the screen every time you see a gap for a right turn or touch every time you need to slow down whenever you see a hazard.

Section 2 DQT

Overtaking (Scenario) : Two videos with two cyclists in front of me. Correct response is to not touch the screen. Do not overtake in both these videos. I repeat, do not touch the screen. Sit back, relax and let the video play. Two easy points.

Slow down (Tip) : When it asks you to touch the screen when to slow down you do it when you see (a) pedestrians (b) car reversing out of drive way (c) if you see car’s break light coming on in front of you (d) indicator (e) too close to car in front (f) curves or bends. (g) people opening car doors)

Slow down (Scenario) : You are driving 60km/h and following a car. When the car in front of you reaches a pedestrian crossing, I noticed that there was a bus stopped left side of the road. As the front car slows down, (you see break lights on) you also slow down (i.e. touch the screen) . Then unexpectedly the bus suddenly indicates to the right and, in no time, it cuts your vehicle, so you quickly touch the screen again to slow down.

Slow down (Scenario): Driving in a tunnel with 2 lanes. When to slow down- when the car is too close with the vehicle in front AND when the car gets close to a van in the left lane because the van will indicate shortly afterwards and jump lanes to be in front of you.

Slow down (Scenario) : You're on a 2 lane freeway with a truck on the right of me and a smaller truck in front. Your car starts getting to close to the small truck in front and I mean obviously too close so as it starts to get closer I pressed the screen once 

Slow down (Scenario): Travelling in the dark along a country road and you come to a corner – touched the screen as soon as i saw the corner sign.

Slow down (Scenario): You’re following a 4WD slowly in a rural residential road, he applies the brake twice to which you should touch the screen each time, and then right at the end he indicates to which you should touch the screen again.

Slow down (Scenario): You're following a car on a suburban road. This one was crazy. You had hazards coming every where, so keep your eyes peeled. These hazards included pedestrians, speed signs, person coming out of car, car indicating to go right. 

Right Turn (Tips): For right turn questions i strongly suggest you do the questions on the SA website. They are quite similar. A word of warning: You do not have to turn right in every video. I got like 4 turn right videos, and i only turned on a couple. Also remember, you can turn right multiple times in the same video when you see a gap. What do i mean by a gap? A gap so big that an elephant can wander through.

Right turn (Scenario): Video starts and you're on a suburban road with not lights and straight away, you can see a humongous gap. You can touch to take the right turn. However i was late on this, so i didn't touch. But don't worry, later in the video you'll see another gap where you can turn. 

Right turn: Don’t turn right on a double lane intersection when you see a truck or any big vehicle on the oncoming direction at the intersection; the big vehicle blocks the view of the other lane therefore it is unsafe to make the turn.

Right turn: I got one in the rain, and turned right TWICE. There was a massive gap after the 3rd wave of cars (I believe) and then again after the 4th. You’ll know what’s right because the gap is so obvious compared to the previous waves. And you can see clearly from the headlights.

Right Turn: On a country road; easy, when there is no car in sight, press to move. Do not hesitate though, because shortly after the gap the video will end.

On a final note, for the slow down questions press the screen a maximum of 5 times. I think each video has a limit of how many touches you can do. 

So, that's it. Good luck! Comment below what questions you got, and i'll add them to the above article. Cheers. 

Final Exam: FINS3635 Options, Futures and Risk Management Guidelines/Tips

Today i did my final exam for FINS3635 (Option, Futures and Risk Management). Started at 8:50, 10 minutes reading time, and 3 hours writing time. There were 17 multiple choice questions(17 marks) and 6 short answer questions worth 28 marks.

Prior to the exam, we were given mock short answer final exam questions to do (The link to the questions is below). We were also given mock multiple choice questions before the exam, and i would say those were quite useful (Link is below). Comparing the mock questions to the exam, i believe the exam questions were quite easier than the mock questions. I managed to complete the exam in 2 hours, and spent 45 minutes reviewing the paper. So overall, i felt quite confident. You may be asking "so what's in the exam?". Well, from what i can remember, here's what you should focus on (i'll keep updating/refining this list):

• Chapter 9 of Hull is expected knowledge; a foundation for the later chapters. You won't be specifically tested from it. Just know your option payoff and you'll be good. 
• Factors affecting option prices (10.1 of Hull); current stock price, strike price, time to expiration etc. A must learn topic. It helps your understanding of later chapters, like Greek Letters.
• I wasn't tested on upper and lower bounds on option prices. At all. Though i can't guarantee you won't. It helps to have a solid understanding of it. They can sneak in a multiple choice question.
• Put-Call Parity (10.4 of Hull). MUST LEARN! Make sure you know how to derive put-call parity. A short answer question i got asked was to find an expression for 'r', the risk-free rate given a call and put option on the same stock, maturity and exercise price. As you can see from the put-call parity equation all you have do is manipulate for r. But the steps preceding it are important: Forming 2 portfolios and equating both positions at time 0. Everything you need to know about put-call parity is in section 10.4 and doing the following questions from chapter 10: Question 7, 11,14,15.
• Optimal exercise of an American call option, with or without a dividend. Make sure you understand both cases as to when it should be optimal to exercise. A good multiple choice question.
• Chapter 11: Was not tested on option trading strategies at all! Nothing. Nonetheless, i suggest you get a good idea of the different strategies, and try figure out the payoffs if two different strategies are combined. A question they could ask you is to give the payoff of a portfolio consisting of a straddle and strangle.
• Chapter 12: Binomial Trees. Absolutely. Study you're heart out on this. A definite short answer question (9 mark short answer question in my exam=20% of the exam) and 3-4 multiple choice questions. Make sure you can derive the derivative price using no-arbitrage arguments (12.1). The short answer question i was given was based on a one-step tree, and i was also given the stock price at 0, and the payoff function of an option in terms of the stock price i.e. S^2/100. So, an up or down movement,(u or d) will give different option payoffs T-1. Part A required me to derive how many stocks i should buy to make the portfolio riskless (See page 256). Part B required me to find the price of the option (See page 256) and finally, Part C required me to find p(probability of an up-movement). Make sure you show every step. The question is not a simple plug in the numbers into the formula. We weren't tested on two-step trees or Cox, Ross and Rubinstein assumptions. My recommendation: Do every practice question in chapter 12, as well as some of the further questions. 
• Chapter 13: Wiener Processes and Ito's Lemma. There were no multiple choice questions on this chapter. However, there was a 4 mark short answer question. Learning the derivation for the different processes is not necessary. More important is how you would apply those derivations to a given question. For example, the short answer question gave us a function F(S) and we had to derive what process the function follows. Nonetheless, the topic is vast and you should have an absolute understanding of these questions from the Hull textbook: Practice Questions 1,3,5,6,10,11. Further Questions:13,16(short answer question was based on this), and 17. Going through chapter 13 initially is quite scary; but don't worry. Have at least 2 reads of the chapter, then move on to the questions at the end of the chapter. It'll all fit in. Just know how to differentiate and have a good understanding of Ito Process, Geometric Brownian Motion and Ito Lemma, and you should be good.
• Chapter 14: Black Scholes Model. There were no short answer questions on this, however there were about 5-6 multiple choice questions. For this topic, have a good understanding what assumptions are used to derive the Model, the stock process it follows for deriving the Model and and  a solid understanding the different inputs that are required to solve for 'c' and 'p'. You should know what ND(1) and ND(2) mean. Reading a z-table is expected knowledge. Focus on the following questions and do the mock multiple choice questions and you should be good: Practice Question 1-10, 13-16, 29,31.
• Chapter 18: The Greeks. This is the final chapter that ties everything in. There was a short answer question about Put-call Parity and gamma, and quite a few multiple choice questions. Can't stress enough how well you need to know this topic. Know every little detail behind each letter and their relationship with each other i.e. Delta-Gamma.