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Quebec study

SAAQ knowledge test study guide

11 lessons covering what the SAAQ knowledge test asks about. Each one has diagrams, the points worth revising, and practice on the same topic at the end of it.

11 lessons5 carry a Quebec rule
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A closed notebook and a mug on a desk beside a large window, looking out on a snow covered street with a bare tree and a road beyond.

Studying for the test in Quebec

Quebec is the only province where a government approved driving course is required before you can be licensed, so the path starts at a driving school rather than at a test counter. The knowledge test opens only after a long wait on the learner licence, the exam is scored section by section, and the right turn on a red light that the rest of the province allows is prohibited across the island of Montreal. The signs are in French. These notes cover what is different about learning to drive in Quebec.

Licence stages, fees and sources for Quebec

Every figure on that page names the body that published it

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What the SAAQ knowledge test asks, and what it costs

Format, pass mark and the fee, with the source on each row

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The lessons, in the order to read them

Start at the top if you are beginning from nothing. Each card says how many Quebec practice questions sit behind the topic, so you can read one and then go and test it.

An uncontrolled rural crossroads with sight lines open across low fields, two vehicles approaching from different arms at a distance.Read
Lesson 1

Right of way: who goes first, and why

6 parts, 5 Quebec questions, 2 diagrams

The order in which two drivers use the same piece of road. Learn it as a set of rules about yielding, because yielding is the thing you actually do.
A signalled intersection with a marked advance left turn lane and a painted crosswalk, seen from the waiting driver position with a green light ahead.Read
Lesson 2Quebec rule

Intersections and turns

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions, 2 diagrams

Most collisions happen where paths cross. This is how to read an intersection on the way in, make a left turn across traffic without guessing, and get through a roundabout in the right lane.
Three vehicles spaced along a two lane highway, seen from behind and above so the gap between each of them is plain.Read
Lesson 3

Speed and following distance

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions, 1 diagram

A posted maximum is a limit for good conditions, not a target. This lesson covers how speed changes what you can stop for, and how to judge the gap in front of you by counting rather than guessing.
A two lane rural highway on a long open straight with a broken centre line, one slow vehicle ahead and clear road beyond it.Read
Lesson 4

Lanes, passing and merging

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions, 3 diagrams

Choosing a lane, changing lanes without surprising anyone, passing on a two way road, and joining a highway at the speed of the traffic already there.
A residential street seen along the curb line, cars parked parallel to it with a fire hydrant on the verge and a painted section of curb.Read
Lesson 5

Parking and stopping

5 parts, 4 Quebec questions, 1 diagram

Where you may not leave a vehicle and why, the difference between stopping and parking, how to parallel park in steps, and what to do with the wheels when you park on a hill.
A wide street where a cyclist, a bus and a delivery van share the space at different distances under calm midday light.Read
Lesson 6

Sharing the road

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions, 2 diagrams

People on foot, cyclists, motorcycles, heavy trucks, school buses and emergency vehicles. What each one needs from you, and the rules the test asks about most.
A dashboard and steering wheel at night with a phone lying face down in the centre console, the road ahead dark and empty through the windscreen.Read
Lesson 7Quebec rule

Impaired and distracted driving

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions

Alcohol, cannabis, prescription medicine, fatigue and the phone. What impairment actually does to driving, what the law expects of a new driver, and why distraction belongs in the same lesson.
A rural road at night lit only by headlights, snow drifting across the surface and the verge markers catching the light.Read
Lesson 8Quebec rule

Weather, winter and driving at night

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions

Rain, snow, ice, fog and darkness all attack the same two things: how far you can see and how much grip you have. This is how to drive when one or both are missing.
A car stopped on a wide highway shoulder with the bonnet closed and a warning triangle set well back from it, nobody in frame.Read
Lesson 9

Emergencies and breakdowns

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions, 1 diagram

Skids, blowouts, brake trouble, a vehicle that stops working and a collision you have to deal with. Rare events with correct answers, which is exactly why they are on the test.
A blank card, a set of keys and a folded blank leaflet laid out evenly on a pale surface and shot square from above.Read
Lesson 10Quebec rule

Graduated licensing: how the system works

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions

Every province licenses new drivers in stages, and the stages exist for the same reason everywhere. This explains the shape of the system and the kind of restriction each stage carries. The dates, ages, fees and hold times live on your province page.
An open car glovebox with a plain unmarked document wallet inside it, shot from the passenger side in daylight through the window.Read
Lesson 11

Documents, penalties and your driving record

5 parts, 5 Quebec questions

What you must carry, what insurance and registration actually are, and how demerit point systems work as a warning system rather than a scoreboard. Every figure here is provincial, so check your province page.

5 of the 11 lessons carry a Quebec rule that changes the answer. Those cards are marked.

Road signs are drilled, not read

A sign is learned by looking at it and saying what it means, then doing that again until the answer arrives before you have thought about it.

Prose about shapes and colours does not do that, so signs get a drill instead of a lesson. It is the one topic on this site where reading is the slower way round.

The Quebec bank holds 54 sign questions, and each one draws the sign itself as vector rather than describing it, so what you study is the shape the standard specifies.

A rural verge lined with three bare posts of different heights, every plate removed, a road running past them into open country.Start

Drill the road signs

54 Quebec questions, drawn rather than described

Quebec rule

Reading the signs in French

Quebec signs are in French, and the stop sign reads ARRÊT rather than STOP. For a learner who does not read French that sounds like a problem, and it is a smaller one than it looks, because Canadian signs are built so that the shape and the colour carry the meaning before the words do.

An octagon means stop whatever is printed on it. A downward pointing triangle means yield. A yellow diamond warns you about something ahead. An orange diamond means temporary work. A red ring with a slash prohibits, and a green circle permits. Learn shapes and colours first and a sign in a language you do not read is still legible to you.

French matters most on the wordy panels rather than on the pictograms. Parking signs in Montreal are famously dense: arrows showing which stretch of curb the rule covers, a period of the day, days of the week, and sometimes a seasonal exception for snow clearing. Read the arrow direction first, then the hours, then the exceptions.

A handful of words carry most of the load: arrêt for stop, cédez for yield, interdit for prohibited, stationnement for parking, sortie for exit, voie for lane, and ouvriers for workers. The SAAQ publishes which languages its exam is available in. If you are studying in English for a test you will sit in French, learn both words for the panels you will meet every day.

When you are ready to practise

Every run is free and needs no account. What you answer is kept in your own browser, so the site can show you which topics keep catching you out, and nothing in a test or a result is held back until you pay.

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