Facts about alcohol — Minnesota Permit Test
Facts about alcohol on the Minnesota permit test — 6 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
A 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, a typical mixed drink and a 9-ounce wine cooler hold about the same amount of alcohol.
The glass sizes differ because the strengths differ, so one of each is one drink each.
A 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, a typical mixed drink and a 9-ounce wine cooler usually contain about the same amount of alcohol.
A mixed drink may hold more than the standard 1.5 ounces of alcohol, and the strength of beers can vary by as much as 40 percent.
A drink poured by a friend is not a measured drink, so counting drinks can undercount the alcohol.
However, it’s important to realize that mixed drinks may contain more than the standard 1.5 ounces of alcohol and the amount of alcohol in beers can vary by as much as 40 percent.
Proof is twice the percentage of alcohol a drink contains, so 80-proof whiskey is 40 percent alcohol.
The number on the bottle is double the strength, which makes a spirit sound stronger than it reads.
The term “proof” refers to the strength of a drink and is equal to twice the percentage of alcohol it contains. For example, a bottle of 80-proof whiskey contains 40 percent alcohol.
Drinking more than one standard drink an hour raises your alcohol concentration.
The body clears about one drink an hour, so anything faster accumulates.
If you consume more than one standard drink per hour, your alcohol concentration will increase.
The effects of alcohol vary with age, gender, body weight, mood, food intake, metabolism and genetics.
Two people who drank the same amount are not in the same state, which is why counting drinks proves nothing.
The effects of alcohol vary greatly among individuals due to factors such as age, gender, body weight, mood, food intake, metabolism and genetics.
Fat takes up alcohol into the bloodstream more readily than muscle tissue, so a person with a higher percentage of body fat reaches a higher alcohol concentration than somebody of the same weight with less.
Muscle tissue does not take up alcohol as readily as fat, so the same drink leaves a higher concentration in the person carrying more fat.
Men generally have more muscle tissue, which does not absorb alcohol into the bloodstream as readily as fat. A person with a higher percentage of fat than another person of the same weight will reach a higher alcohol concentration by consuming the same amount of alcohol.
On the test
How much wine holds about as much alcohol as a 12-ounce beer?
5 ounces. The glass sizes differ because the strengths differ, so one of each is one drink each. Minnesota Driver’s Manual, p.90: “A 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, a typical mixed drink and a 9-ounce wine cooler usually contain about the same amount of alcohol.”
How this works
Most practice tests hand you a bank of questions and leave the manual somewhere else. This one puts them together.
You read one law and the reason behind it, then answer a question on that law while it is still fresh. Get it right and you move on; get it wrong and you have found the gap while it is cheap to fix, not on the morning of the exam.
Learning one rule at a time, and proving it immediately, is what turns a manual you skimmed into something you actually know — and it makes studying feel like getting somewhere rather than like waiting to find out.
What it costs
- One payment, once — not a subscription. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel, for an exam you sit one time.
- Free to start: a 10-question test and the first section of cards. No sign-up and no account.
- Paying opens the rest of the cards, unlimited full-length practice tests, and retests built from exactly the questions you got wrong.
- Every level up to Prepared — 3 tests passed in a row.
- Do the work, fail the real exam, and we refund you.
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against Minnesota Driver’s Manual, published by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-22.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MN.pdf (Minnesota Driver’s Manual, May 2025, Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Driver and Vehicle Services, retrieved 2026-09-14; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MN.pages.txt (the plain pdftotext fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json, MN entry -- the folio offset of 3 and its basis, the folio marker, the extraction-flag score and the welded compounds it costs, and the record of where the exam shape comes from