Testing — West Virginia Permit Test
Testing on the West Virginia permit test — 5 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
The knowledge examination has at least 25 questions drawn from the basic knowledge, traffic rules, regulations, signs and markings found in the handbook, and you must answer 19 of the 25 correctly to pass.
Everything the test can ask is somewhere in the book you were given.
There is a time limit on the knowledge test, and any question not answered in the time allowed is counted incorrect.
An unanswered question scores the same as a wrong one, so a guess costs nothing.
You pass the vision screening if your vision is 20/40 or better using both eyes, with or without corrective lenses, and with no serious visual defect.
Reading a sign in time is the whole of what the screening is for.
If you need glasses or contact lenses to reach 20/40, your license will show a restriction code for corrective lenses.
The restriction is on the license because an officer has no other way to check it.
If you have only one eye, you may still pass the vision screening if the vision in that eye is 20/40 or better.
What matters is whether you can read the road, not how many eyes read it.
On the test
How many of the 25 knowledge questions must you answer correctly?
19 of them. Everything the test can ask is somewhere in the book you were given.
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.
All West Virginia permit topics
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against West Virginia Driver's Licensing Handbook, published by the West Virginia Department of Transportation, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-06.