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The story
A post about failing the provisional license written exam drew replies from 5ch users like “Honestly, that was hard” and “I’ve been driving for 20 years and I still only scored 74 on Musashi (a mock-exam app).” But harsher opinions surfaced too, like “The written test is a breeze if you actually study” and “If you fail, you just don’t have what it takes to drive,” and the thread devolved into a bit of a squabble.
What people said
The app's the same nationwide, so that's kind of a weak excuse
Then what am I supposed to use instead?
Sorry, but I've got a bunch of licenses and I've never failed once, written or practical (lol)
Right? Needing 90 to pass is no joke.
No way. Even idiots who barely finished middle school pass this thing.
That's just because they got lucky.
Was that assessment test you kept failing about the practical driving lessons?
You probably just didn't study properly, huh?
No, I did that assessment test over and over, starting like two weeks before.
If you fail something like that, it basically means you're just not cut out to drive.
Exactly this. I'd rather someone give up than get a license they're bad at and end up causing an accident.
I think the written test is easy if you've got half a brain.
The practical is just a roll of the dice on which instructor you get.
And by "dice roll" I mean your regular instructor, not the exam examiner.
At the driving school I went to, you pay a bit extra up front and normally get refunded after passing —
but I was the only one who had to pay extra for lessons in the back half after getting my provisional license, and got mocked for it.
Still can't get over it.
Well yeah, that's only natural since you needed extra lesson time.
Probably that's it
When swapping drivers in a car, is it okay to take off your seatbelt? True or False?
Honestly the question itself is weirdly worded to begin with.
What does "swap the car" even mean?
Or maybe it was the prep test before the actual practical.
Either way, driving school is a great place.
I went to get my license during summer break in college but ran out of time right before the provisional exam.
Then over winter break I went back to the driving school, and my very first drive was the provisional practical exam.
…I drove the whole course and only realized after I got back that I hadn't buckled my seatbelt.
Of course I failed.
Background and Key Points
Learner’s permits in Japan (kari-menkyo) require passing a written exam covering road rules from the Road Traffic Act, typically administered after completing the classroom and simulator portion at a licensed driving school (kyōshūjo). The pass line is famously steep for a “beginner” test — 90 out of 100 questions correct, with true/false format questions that often hinge on deliberately ambiguous wording. Musashi, mentioned repeatedly in the thread, is one of several widely used cram apps/software for this exam, standing in for the broader mock-test industry that’s sprung up around Japan’s notoriously tricky driving-school bureaucracy — most learners go through a private or public kyōshūjo rather than self-study, and the system layers multiple gatekeeping tests (aptitude checks, in-school practical assessments, then the actual provisional exam) before a student ever reaches the DMV-equivalent (unlicensed practical road test comes later, after the provisional stage).
The thread’s real fault line isn’t “is the test hard” — nearly everyone conceded individual questions felt like gotchas — it’s whether difficulty reflects the test’s design flaws (trick wording, regional/instructor disagreement on “split questions”) or the test-taker’s fitness to drive at all. Posters bragging about zero failures across “a bunch of licenses” versus a 20-year veteran scoring 74 on a mock exam captures that split exactly: is this a badly written test, or a legitimate filter that some people fail because they didn’t prepare, or shouldn’t be driving?
What outsiders likely miss: this severity is by design, not incompetence — Japan intentionally front-loads redundant testing (aptitude tests, in-house practical checks before the state practical exam) specifically to reduce road accidents by filtering early, at the cost of extra fees each time a student needs remedial lessons, which is what the poster in the thread was mocked for paying.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News VIP) thread “Failed my provisional license written exam lol”.
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