The school I used had access to the Farnborough test centre at weekends, which meant that students could get a good couple of hours practice in the actual environment before taking the test. Over my four days of Direct Access training, I spent a good six hours in the place, but my last session was probably the most disastrous and I didn't hold out much hope for the test. I was asked to repeat the same exercises over and over again by the instructor and I felt confident with all but the U-turn. During my first five attempts, either my foot went down or I crossed the line (which would have resulted in a fail during the test). On the sixth attempt, I was too slow and turned too much, and, in a flash, the bike was on the floor! Despite being pushed to try again, I had a bit of a tantrum and had to take a break. On the morning of the test, we went to the car park of an empty office block. Within a couple of minutes, this large open space was transformed into a test centre - with dozens of coloured cones all over the place. Thankfully, everything came together at the last minute and I finally took on board the instructors advice about not looking at the floor during the turn. Not staring at the floor made this once challenging manoeuvre much more straightforward! The test itself lasted a little under 15 minutes and I came away with two minors. I was travelling at 49km/h on my emergency stop and the examiner didn't like that I dragged my left leg for a little while when moving off. Before you have a chance to give the module one test any thought, it's over.