What is the pass rate for the Alberta knowledge test?

Alberta Transportation does not publish an official pass rate. Registry staff commonly report that first-attempt pass rates fall between 60 and 70 per cent, and that the number is higher among people who have run through a full practice test.

What is the pass mark on the Alberta knowledge test?

You need 25 out of 30 correct — roughly 83 per cent. The test is multiple choice and there is no time limit.

How many times can I fail before I am blocked from retaking it?

There is no cap on retakes. You can rebook as early as the next business day in most cases. Each attempt costs the $17 test fee.

What are the hardest topics on the Alberta knowledge test?

The topics most people lose points on are GDL demerit limits, parking distance rules, right-of-way at uncontrolled intersections, winter driving physics, and uncommon regulatory signs.

Alberta Knowledge Test Pass Rate — What to Expect in 2026

Last updated: October 2026

Updated October 2026 · 4 min read

Short versionAlberta does not publish an official pass rate. Based on what registry staff report, roughly 60 to 70 per cent of first-time test takers pass. The pass mark is 25 out of 30, or about 83 per cent. People who do a full practice test first pass at a much higher rate.

The honest answer about the pass rate

Alberta Transportation does not release pass-rate numbers for the Class 7 knowledge test. There is no annual report, no public dashboard, and no FOIP release that gives a single reliable figure. If you see an exact percentage on another site, it is either guessed or copied from an older article that guessed too.

What we do have is what registry staff see day to day. The range they describe sits around 60 to 70 per cent on a first attempt, with higher numbers among people who studied beyond skimming the handbook. The second-attempt pass rate is much higher — most people who fail come back and clear it the next week.

Treat those numbers as rough shape, not fact. The point is that the test is not trivial, but it is not designed to catch people out either. If you have read the handbook and practised, you should pass.

The pass mark

You need 25 correct answers out of 30. That is 83.33 per cent. You can get up to five questions wrong. There is no partial credit, no essay section, and no oral follow-up. The questions are plain multiple choice, four options each, one correct answer.

Thirty questions is a small sample. Missing one is normal. Missing three means the next two have to be clean. People who go in cold often lose points in a cluster — a bad run on signs, or a block of GDL questions they haven't thought about — and that is what pushes them under the line.

Where points actually get lost

From working through the Driver's Guide and reading what people say after they take the test, five topics come up again and again. These are the questions worth over-studying.

1. GDL demerit thresholds

A Class 7 or Class 5-GDL driver gets suspended at 8 demerits. A full Class 5 driver gets suspended at 15. The handbook gives both numbers, but under pressure people merge them. Expect at least one question on this. Our fines and demerits drill covers the exact numbers.

2. Parking distances

Alberta has specific minimum distances for parking near fire hydrants, stop signs, crosswalks, railway crossings, and intersections. Five metres from a stop sign. Five metres from a crosswalk. Fifteen metres from a fire hydrant. Fifteen metres from a railway crossing. These are the kind of numbers that look memorisable until you sit down and try to list them from memory. The parking and intersections drill runs through them.

3. Right-of-way at uncontrolled intersections

When two cars arrive at an intersection with no signs or signals at the same time, the car on the right has the right-of-way. People get this backwards or add conditions that don't exist (speed, size, who is turning). The rule is simple but the questions dress it up.

4. Winter driving physics

Stopping distance on ice can be up to ten times the stopping distance on dry pavement. Hydroplaning starts to be a real risk around 55 km/h on wet roads. In a skid, you ease off the gas and steer where you want to go — you do not brake hard. These numbers come up every test. The winter driving drill covers all of them.

5. Signs you have never seen

Common signs are easy. The problem is the long tail: advance warning signs, construction tabs, truck-route signs, playground zones versus school zones, the rectangular versus diamond shape convention. The handbook shows them; a quick skim will miss most. The road signs test drills the shapes and colours systematically.

How to be in the pass group

If you want numbers, aim for 85 per cent or better on practice tests before you walk in. That gives you a buffer for the questions you have not seen. The three study moves that matter most:

Read the Alberta Driver's Guide once, cover to cover. Yes, all of it.
Run our 30-question timed mock test. Same length and pass mark as the real test. If you clear 25 three times running, you are ready.
Drill the weak topic. The full 500-question practice test tags your wrong answers so you can see where you are losing points.

If you want more on what the test actually looks like at the counter, our guide on what to expect walks through the full visit. For the GDL rules themselves, see the graduated licensing page. People who tend to get caught by the trickier questions find the hardest questions guide useful too.

Practising in another province? We also run free question banks for Ontario G1 and BC Class 7L.