Chapter 301.
<strong>Chapter 301. My Birthday: Knowledge Test. (6/6)</strong>
<span style="font-weight:400">I put the matters of the two scary women off to one side and began my ss 6 knowledge test.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">What should you do if there isn''t enough time to avoid a small obstacle on the roadway?</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">That was the very first question and I immediately froze up and broke out into a sweat. Had I taken this test too easy?
<span style="font-weight:400">The options were (A) Lean forward, (B) Hit the obstacle head on, (C) Apply the front brake, (D) Downshift.
<span style="font-weight:400">To start off with a wrong answer would be a bit painful. It could lower my morale and focus. It’d be constantly at the back of my mind and bother me.
<span style="font-weight:400">As such, I pressed the skip button. We were allowed toe back to the question if we skipped it. It’de back around as thest question if I didn’t skip any other questions. It was a feature I hadn’t used on the first test because of how easy it was for me.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">A motorcycle is not a good fit for you unless...</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">I breathed out a sigh of relief when I was given a much easier question. The answer was, you can stand with both feet on the ground when straddling the saddle. Seriously though, this was such tant discrimination against vertically challenged people.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">On a normal motorcycle, you would operate the clutch with…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> your left hand.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">If your helmet has a crack in it, under what circumstances can you still use it?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> None.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">On a dry, smooth, level road, your brakes must be capable of stopping your bike from 30 km/hr within…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> 9 meters.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">At a minimum, your motorcycle boots should reach at least…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> over your ankle.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">What is the choke on a motorcycle used for?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> Starting from cold.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">You should always mount your motorcycle from…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> the left side.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Your rear license te must be illuminated with what color of light?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> White.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Which of these is itpulsory to have on your instrument panel?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> Speedometer.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Where will you normally find the controls for your headlights on a motorcycle?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> On the left handlebar.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">What is the minimum width for motorcycle handlebars? </i><span style="font-weight:400">53 cm.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">As you ride, your feet should be on the footpegs and…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> level.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">When you release the throttle of your motorcycle, it should…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> spring closed.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">In your normal riding position, you should be…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> leaning slightly forward.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">On a normal motorcycle, you operate the front brake using…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> your right hand.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Making a right turn from the rightne, what position should you be riding in?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> The right-hand tire track
<i><span style="font-weight:400">In normal riding circumstances, you should try to stay…</i><span style="font-weight:400"> Near the center of yourne.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">On a multne roadway, you should take up a position where?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> In the tire track closest to thene division line. Tire track just meant in line with the tires of the car in front of you. This was so you could have more room to maneuver out of the way should someone try to box you out or cut you off.
<span style="font-weight:400">After I got to the twentieth question I ended up getting some wrong. The difficulty had increased. By the time I got to the thirtieth question, I’d gotten four of the questions incorrect altogether.
<span style="font-weight:400">Thest ten questions ended up being about stuff like driving while impaired, license suspensions, and criminal code-rted matters. I hadn’t put much attention on studying these areas in the handbook because I never drank alcohol, did drugs, had my license suspended, or got in trouble with thew before. They were honestly things that would most likely never apply to me and if they did, I’d just look them up at that point. I wasn’t the type to do stupid shit like this.
<span style="font-weight:400">As such, I struggled for the first time in a while on a test. These final questions were the determining factor whether I passed or not.
<span style="font-weight:400">By the time I answered the thirty-ninth question, I’d gotten 4 in this section incorrect. I couldn’t afford to get thest question wrong.
<span style="font-weight:400">And of course, thest question was the very first question I skipped.
<span style="font-weight:400">My stomach turned in disgust when the question I put off at the start came back to bite me in the ass.
<span style="font-weight:400">What would I do if I was in a situation where I couldn’t avoid an obstacle?
<span style="font-weight:400">I closed my eyes and imagined myself on a motorcycle driving down a dark road at night. At thest moment, my headlights uncover an unknown obstacle in front of me and it’s toote to avoid it.
<span style="font-weight:400">My eyes sh before my eyes as time slows down and I’m given four choices. If I choose incorrectly, I will die.
<span style="font-weight:400">Would I lean forward in this situation? No, that sounds stupid, wouldn’t doing so make it more likely that I fly forward off of my motorcycle? Then, it wasn’t A.
<span style="font-weight:400">Do I hit the obstacle head on? Doesn’t that sound stupid though? Well… what if it’s a ss bottle, would it be stupid then? If I applied the brakes in that situation instead, what would actually happen?
<span style="font-weight:400">Is it possible that as the bottle caves in around the front wheel that it could be sent flying up at me and shoot ss shards into my body? In that case, slowing down might result in more broken ss puncturing my body from below. Thus, downshifting to a lower gear would also be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?
<span style="font-weight:400">Downshifting to a lower gear would only increase my braking ability, my ability to slow down faster.
<span style="font-weight:400">An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an opposing force, Newton’s firstw.
<span style="font-weight:400">When your eleration is kept at zero there is no force being applied. If I add another force to the equation in the form of braking, it could lead to a really bad skid across the ss due to the sudden negative eleration and the ss''s low coefficient of friction.
<span style="font-weight:400">The slower you pass over something sharp, the more time it has to puncture into what passes over it. However, the faster you travel over it, the greater the force. If I looked at it from an impulse-momentum standpoint... no, that’d probably turn into aplex optimization problem as the contact point with the ss bottle, shape, and the force it’s experiencing changes with time. Who’s got time to try and solve that sort of chaotic nonsense?
<span style="font-weight:400">There’s obviously an easier way to think about it than physics.
<span style="font-weight:400">What if I make an analogy for it instead? For example, if I think of it as ying with fire. If it was fire, rather than slowing down and receiving worse burns, wouldn’t I just drive through it without slowing down to minimize the time I’m exposed to the high temperature? Then… the answer would be… (B), hit the obstacle head on, right?
<span style="font-weight:400">The simtion in my head finally unpaused as I drove directly over the ss bottle and reopened my eyes.
<span style="font-weight:400">I gulped nervously and slowly extended my arm out to select my answer. I was filled with anxiety. I hadn’t felt this sort of feeling from taking a test in almost two decades.
<span style="font-weight:400">What if I was wrong and it wasn’t B? I’d only have to wait seven days to take it again and waste another measly $10, but the problem with that scenario was the seller. They said they wouldn’t sell their motorcycle to me if I didn’t have a ss 6L license. That was because I had to ride it home on my own. Irene only had a ss 5F license, so nobody else could ride it.
<span style="font-weight:400">Damn it, it was such a good deal, I didn’t want to lose out on it because of this.
<span style="font-weight:400">Those damn girls, they’d cursed me with their ungodly foreshadowing. Screw you foreshadowing, I won’t lose to something stereotypical like you.
<span style="font-weight:400">Do I believe in my deduction, or do I go with a random guess?
<span style="font-weight:400">By the time that thought entered my head, it was already toote. I didn’t have time to think. I was down to ten seconds and about to run out of time. With no other choice, I locked in B with my eyes shut and submitted my answer.
<span style="font-weight:400">I didn’t bother to look at the screen to see whether I’d passed. Rather, I stood up and immediately headed to the counter.
<span style="font-weight:400">When the woman I’d been dealing with finished assisting someone else I approached the counter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Tsk, you passed, huh. Just barely too.” She scoffed as soon as she looked up from her monitor and saw me.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I heard her confirm I’d passed, I breathed out a long sigh of relief. Thankfully, I’d gotten thatst question correct after all. From the looks of things, it seems her conversation with Rosa had left her in an awful mood.
<span style="font-weight:400">“A pass is a pass.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Here, I already printed out your license.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Just one?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“It’s good for both. You only get a single document. On it, it shows in the ss stage field which licenses you have. So for you, right now it would be 5L and 6M.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I see. Thanks.” I’d never had more than a ss 5 license so I didn’t actually know how it worked when you got another.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You need to sign it.” She exined as she slid the temporary paper license over the counter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, right.” I picked up a pen and signed the signature line as instructed.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You’re set to go. All you need to do now is take the motorcycle training course.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Great. I’ve really got to go. I’m scheduled to take it right after this.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, good luck with that I guess.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I was somewhat dumbfounded when I was wished the best of luck by her of all people.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, are you okay?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? What do you mean?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“To wish me the best of luck, you’ve got to be feeling sick or something, right?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“It’s called lip service and it’s part of the job. Just shut up and go already, I’ve got other people to assist.”
<span style="font-weight:400">As she’d indicated, there were other people in the waiting area who’d shown up since we arrived. We’d gotten here as soon as they opened up in the morning. It had to be that early because of the training course that’d take all day.
<span style="font-weight:400">Honestly, I was cutting it pretty close with work and all. But it couldn’t be helped.