West Didsbury driving test centre

The first thing to know is that there are no mini-roundabouts here at all, and only one roundabout worth naming, on The Boulevard inside the business park. Everything else is junctions: sixteen give-way junctions and thirty-three sets of signals across the loops. If you have spent your lessons drilling roundabout technique, redirect that effort into observation and timing at T-junctions and crossroads, because that is what you will be marked on.

Barlow Moor Road is the spine of most routes. From there you pick up Nell Lane, Palatine Road, Wilmslow Road, Burton Road, Darley Avenue and the streets around Mersey Crescent and Hardcastle Avenue. Those are residential, parked on both sides and mostly 20 mph. Roughly three in every ten miles of the loops are in a 20 zone, with humps and other calming features scattered through them, so the speedometer needs regular attention rather than one glance at the sign as you enter.

Princess Road is the fast section. Joining it means merging with traffic moving considerably quicker than anything you have done in the previous ten minutes, and that merge is where nerves tend to show. The other recurring hazard is the tram. Where the Metrolink line crosses the road the signals are its own, and they are easy to read as ordinary traffic lights. The practice loops on this page run between three and six miles, shorter than at most centres, because so much is packed into each one.