Illinois's own sources currently describe three different basic control exercise sets: the July 2025 manual lists four exercises, the live Secretary of State FAQ lists three including parallel parking, and the rule as amended from 1 July 2026 lists another four. The three-part test structure and the restriction consequences are not in dispute. Confirm the exercise set with the Secretary of State before your test date.
Preparing for the Illinois CDL skills test currently involves a problem that no amount of studying solves: the state's own published sources do not agree on which basic control exercises the test contains.
This is not a rumour and it is not a case of one outdated page. As of the middle of August 2026, three official Illinois sources — the current driver manual, the live Secretary of State FAQ, and the administrative rule as recently amended — describe three different sets of exercises. All three are published. None has been withdrawn.
This guide does the only useful thing available: it separates what every source agrees on, which is most of the test, from the one part where they diverge — and says plainly what to do about the part nobody can currently confirm.
The structure of the test is settled and consistent. It runs in three parts, in this order: the pre-trip vehicle inspection, basic vehicle control skills, then on-road driving. That order is federal as well as state, and nothing in the Illinois sources contradicts it.
The federal core of what basic control must demonstrate is also settled. Every CDL applicant must show, in a representative vehicle, that they can start and stop the engine, move and accelerate the vehicle smoothly forwards and backwards, and make a controlled stop. Straight-line backing with control of path and clearance is required. So is positioning and safely executing left and right turns, selecting an appropriate gear, and backing along a curved path.
The vehicle requirements are settled. You supply a vehicle representing the class, type and endorsements you are applying for. Manufacturer GVWR and GCWR tags must be present and legible. The vehicle needs current registration, insurance and any applicable safety inspection, must be clean and safe, and must have a seat and belt for the examiner.
And the consequences of your vehicle choice are settled, which makes them the most actionable facts in this article. For Group A, testing with a power unit and towed unit connected by a pintle hook or other non-fifth-wheel connection results in an O restriction. An automatic vehicle results in E. On brakes: testing without a system operating fully or partly on air results in L; an air-over-hydraulic system results in Z; and a full air system adds no air restriction provided the knowledge test is passed.
One more that is settled and occasionally forgotten: recording devices are prohibited during the road test, with a narrow exception for a device installed on a school bus by the district or bus company where the driver cannot switch it off.
The disagreement is confined to one thing: which basic control exercises the test contains, and by extension their names, order and allowances.
The current Illinois CDL Study Guide — DSD CDL 10.30, printed July 2025 — describes four exercises in its basic control section: Forward Stop, Straight-Line Backing, Forward Offset Tracking and Reverse Offset Backing. Parallel parking is not presented as an exercise in that manual.
The live Secretary of State FAQ, as of 12 August 2026, still answers that the basic skills test contains three exercises: straight line backing, offset backing and parallel parking.
The administrative rule at 92 Ill. Adm. Code 1030.85(c)(2), read after the amendment effective 1 July 2026, indicates dock parking, straight-line backing, stopping at a marked line, and a predetermined right turn.
Three official sources, three different lists. And separately, the Secretary of State's index still publishes the DSD CDL 20 to 24 exercise sheets, which are dated July 2015 and describe straight-line, offset and parallel parking. Their continued publication proves that the files remain online; it does not prove they are current or that they are used at the test.
Set out together, the divergence is easier to plan around than to describe.
| Source | Date | Basic control exercises described |
|---|---|---|
| Illinois CDL Study Guide, DSD CDL 10.30 | Printed July 2025 | Forward Stop · Straight-Line Backing · Forward Offset Tracking · Reverse Offset Backing |
| Secretary of State live FAQ | As read 12 August 2026 | Straight line backing · Offset backing · Parallel parking |
| 92 Ill. Adm. Code 1030.85(c)(2), as amended | Effective 1 July 2026 | Dock parking · Straight-line backing · Stopping at a marked line · Predetermined right turn |
| DSD CDL 20–24 exercise sheets | July 2015, still published in the SOS index | Straight-line · Offset · Parallel parking |
We will not tell you which of these lists is the one you will face. Not because we have not looked, but because doing so would mean guessing on the one question where a wrong answer costs you a test fee, a day off work and a retest wait.
It would also be easy to do and easy to sell. Picking the newest source and presenting it confidently would produce a cleaner article. It would just have a meaningful chance of being wrong, and the reader would have no way of knowing.
So our own guide treats the basic control exercise set as unconfirmed and does not build practice questions on it, while teaching the federal skills underneath every version of the list — because those are what the exercises are made of, whichever names they carry.
That is also the honest reading of the situation: the underlying competencies are stable, and it is the packaging that is in dispute.
Train the competencies, not the exercise names. Straight-line backing appears in all three lists. Controlling a reverse along an offset path, placing the vehicle accurately against a line or a boundary, and executing a controlled forward stop are the building blocks of every version. A driver who can do those can perform any of the exercise sets; a driver who has drilled four named exercises and meets a different four is stuck.
Confirm the current set directly before your test. Call the facility where you are testing, or ask through the Secretary of State's live channels, and ask specifically which exercises the basic control portion contains at that site on that date. That question takes two minutes and it is the only reliable answer available.
Use the live scheduling and facility pages to confirm the site handles your transaction and your test at all before you travel. A static list of facilities and services is not a durable authority.
And be careful with the scoring categories you may see in the manual — pull-ups, back-ups, encroachments, looks, final position, plus failure to follow instructions and unsafe act. Those describe the manual's presentation. They are not a confirmed operational scoring scale, and the number of free pull-ups or permitted looks in any given exercise should not be treated as a promise.
One thing you can rely on completely: whatever the exercises turn out to be, they are performed in the vehicle you bring, and that vehicle decides the restrictions printed on your licence for years afterwards. That decision is entirely yours and it is not in dispute anywhere.
The state's sources disagree. The July 2025 manual does not present it as an exercise; the live Secretary of State FAQ still names it; the rule as amended from 1 July 2026 lists a different set again. Ask the Secretary of State or your testing facility before your test date.
Three or four depending on which official Illinois source you read. The manual describes four, the live FAQ describes three, and the amended rule describes four different ones. None of these has been withdrawn.
The three-part structure — pre-trip inspection, basic vehicle control, then on-road driving — and the federal core skills: starting and stopping the engine, smooth movement forwards and backwards, a controlled stop, straight-line backing, curved-path backing, and safely positioned left and right turns.
On Group A, a pintle hook or other non-fifth-wheel connection gives O and an automatic gives E. On brakes, no air system gives L and air-over-hydraulic gives Z; a full air system adds no air restriction provided the knowledge test is passed.
No. Recording devices are prohibited during the road test. The narrow exception is a device installed on a school bus by the district or bus company that the driver cannot switch off.
Only the Secretary of State can, by reconciling the manual, the live FAQ and the amended rule. Until it does, any published claim about which set is current is a guess — and a guess on this question costs a candidate a test fee and a retest wait.
Rules change. Where a figure or a procedure can move, the issuing agency’s current published instructions win over anything here.
