How we write and check every question

This page explains where the material on PermitKeys comes from, what happens to a question between the first draft and the moment it reaches you, and how you can tell us when something is wrong. If you only want the short version: every question is written from the current driver handbook of its state, it names the page it comes from, and it goes up only after it has passed review against that page.

There is no official question bank

In the United States, each state licenses its own drivers, and each one writes and runs its own knowledge test. What a state agency publishes for learners is a driver handbook: the rules of the road, the signs, the penalties and the steps to get a license. The handbook is not a list of test questions; the questions on the real test are the agency's own.

So the handbook, not a list of questions, is what a practice question can be checked against. We read the handbook ourselves and write our own questions from it, one fact per question, so that every question tests a rule the state has put in writing. We never write a question from another practice site, a forum or a summary made by someone else.

The handbook editions we use today

A question is only as good as the edition it was checked against. These are the editions behind the questions on the site right now:

• California: the California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition (printed code DL 600 ENGLISH (REV. 6/2025)), 198 questions.
• New York: the New York State Driver's Manual (MV-21), April 2026 version (printed code MV-21 (PDF 2026-04-20)), 100 questions.

When we move a state to a new edition, every question for that state is checked again against the new text. A question that has not yet been checked against the new edition is taken off the site.

How a question is drafted

Each question starts from a single sentence in the handbook. We write the question around that rule, then the correct answer, then the wrong options. A wrong option has to be plainly wrong under the handbook, and we test that in a specific way: we turn the option into a statement about the rule and ask whether that statement is true. If it is, the option is a second right answer, and it gets replaced. A stricter number than the rule allows can be a fair wrong answer; a number that also obeys the rule cannot.

Every question records the exact section and page of the handbook it comes from, and the question page on this site shows that section and page with a link to read it on the state's website. Page numbers are the ones printed in the handbook, so you can open your own copy and find the same place.

We also keep, for internal use, the exact handbook sentence each question relies on. That sentence is what a review compares against. It never appears on the site.

How a question is reviewed

Writing a question and checking it are separate jobs. After a draft is finished, a first review opens the cited page and confirms three things: that the correct answer is what the handbook says, that each wrong option is wrong under the handbook, and that the citation points to the right section and page. A second review then repeats the same check without seeing the first one. If the two disagree, the question is corrected and reviewed again, or it is withdrawn.

This has been our rule for every new or edited question since September 30, 2026. The questions published before that date were each checked against their cited page by a review separate from the drafting, and that check is what their review record seals.

Reviews and audits find real problems. They have caught explanations that stretched a time limit from one rule to the rule next to it, wording that turned a handbook "may" into something firmer, and wrong options that a careful reader could defend as correct. Each of those was fixed before the question went up again.

The review seal

When a question passes review, we store a review record with the date, the handbook edition it was checked against and a fingerprint of the question: its wording, its options, its explanation and its citations, combined into a short code. The site is built only from questions whose stored fingerprint still matches their current text.

The effect is simple. If anyone edits a reviewed question afterward, even by one word, the fingerprint no longer matches, the seal is void and the question drops off the site until it has been reviewed again. The same happens when we move a state to a new edition of its handbook: every review record that names the old edition stops counting. A state goes up only once at least 100 of its questions have passed review.

Explanations in our own words

The explanation under each question is the part we care most about. It gives the rule behind the answer, why the other options are wrong, and something that helps the rule stick. Knowing that the answer is B teaches you very little; knowing why the other three fail is what carries over to a question you have never seen.

A handbook is the state's own text, so we read it as a source and write our own. We hold ourselves to a number: no explanation, no point in a handbook summary and no sentence in a guide may repeat more than ten words in a row from the handbook. An automated check compares all of that text against the full handbook, not only against the cited passages, and anything over the limit is rewritten before it is published. When it has caught a passage, we rewrote the passage; we never raised the limit.

Some answer options keep the handbook's exact phrase, where the wording of the rule is the point of the question. Explanations do not.

Other checks before anything is published

• Every stored handbook sentence is searched for in the official PDF of the handbook, on the page the question claims. A sentence that cannot be found, or that turns up on a different page, is fixed before the question goes up.
• Every number in the handbook points of the guides and the handbook summaries (distances, speeds, fines, deadlines) is checked against the page it cites.
• Each question lives at one address only. The same question is never published twice under different pages.

Our practice format and the official test

We keep two things apart: what a state agency says about its own test, and the format of our practice test. The pages of this site describe our practice test only.

• California: each attempt draws 36 questions from the bank and you need 30 right to pass our practice test (46 questions and 38 right in the version for drivers under 18). The DMV sets the passing score of its own test at 80%, and our mark asks for at least that.
• New York: each attempt draws 20 questions from the bank and you need 14 right to pass our practice test.

The length and the passing mark of our practice test are our choice. They are meant to make you work a little harder than the real thing, not to predict how many questions you will see at the office.

Where the numbers on the data pages come from

Besides the questions, a few pages explain the rules with public data. None of their figures is typed by hand. A script reads each official source and writes a data file that we keep under version control, with the source and the date it was downloaded. The page then reads that file when the site is built, so if the file is updated, every figure on the page changes with it.

• What a California traffic ticket costs in full: from the Uniform Bail and Penalty Schedules, 2026 Edition (Traffic Infraction Fixed Penalty Schedule), published by the Judicial Council of California. The script checks that every row adds up before it writes the file.
• The traffic laws behind California crashes: from the California Crash Reporting System (CCRS), Crashes and Parties 2024, California Highway Patrol, via data.ca.gov.
• Why the provisional license has a curfew and a passenger rule: from the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), National CSV files, with license counts from FHWA Highway Statistics 2024, Table DL-20 and California DMV, Estimated Licenses Outstanding by Age & Gender.

These pages describe what their source reports and link to it. Where they touch a handbook rule, they link to the handbook, or to the question or guide that covers it.

How to report an error

If you think a question, an explanation or a guide is wrong, or a state has published a new handbook that we have not caught up with, please tell us. Write to us through the contact page or directly at contact@permitkeys.com. The most useful report includes:

• the address of the question page, or its ID, which is the last part of the address (for example, ca-0001);
• what you think is wrong, in a sentence or two;
• the handbook page that says otherwise, and the edition you are reading, if you know it.

We check every report against the handbook page. When a report is right, the question is corrected, its seal is voided by the edit, and it returns only after passing review again. Content changes are listed on the changes page.