Yeah, the people who I trained with have a fully marked out reversing bay setup and they get an approved assessor (different to whoever has trained you) to do the test. To be honest they were very thorough with it, and I’m sure they would fail you if you couldn’t do as required. But if you can’t do the basic manoeuvre needed to pass that particular test you probably shouldn’t be on the road in any vehicle!
It is all ridiculous though - you go from a car licence (having potentially never sat behind the wheel of a truck) to taking your test after 3 and a half days of lessons!
I’ll be honest, I didn’t pass first time, and I’m actually pretty glad that I didn’t as I learned a bit more again from the examiner. Plenty do pass first time though apparently, and the instructor reckons they have had several people who were really poor drivers who pass on their first attempt.
I found the artic really easy to drive - the auto box definitely helps with that in a big way though I’d rather have learned in a manual, but that wasn’t available from anywhere I could find. I’ve had a lot of experience driving big kit and done loads of towing over the years so I didn’t go into it from a standing start (and I really enjoy driving which I think helps).
I’m glad I’ve done it and may venture into truck ownership at some point (that was a big reason for getting my licence) - I will probably try and get a few days here and there agency driving just to ‘get my eye in’ (if I ever have time!) but I’m not sure I’d want to drive a truck all day every day.