The only chapter where the hazard has not read anything
Every other specialist chapter is about a site somebody controls. This one is about working inside live traffic, where the main hazard is a member of the public doing fifty who is looking at their phone.
That changes what the questions are about. The layout is not paperwork, it is the only thing standing between a person on foot and a vehicle, and it has to work for a driver who is tired, arriving at night, or unfamiliar with the road. Signing, lighting and guarding are three separate functions and a layout missing any one of them fails.
The safety zone is not storage
A compliant looking layout stops protecting anybody the moment people or materials sit inside the safety zone. That space exists to absorb a vehicle that clips the cones. Anything in it becomes a projectile, and anybody in it becomes the casualty.
The same logic runs through the whole chapter. Advance signing distances are set from the speed limit because a driver needs a specific amount of road to read, react and change lane. Lamps have to work because a dead lamp in a taper reads as the taper ending there. None of it is arbitrary and none of it survives being set out by eye.
Pedestrians are part of the job, not an inconvenience
A pedestrian pushed into the carriageway by the works has been put in front of traffic by the job. The alternative route has to be guarded, signed and usable by somebody in a wheelchair or following a tapping rail, which means continuous barriers rather than a line of cones.
That is the part of the chapter most likely to be answered wrongly by an experienced operative, because a line of cones feels like it does the job and it does not.
It is the operatives test plus a chapter
Roughly seven questions in ten on this paper are core material from the operatives test. If the five core areas are shaky, they are what will fail you. The score here separates highway works out as its own line so you can tell which problem you have.
The combined figure flatters the part you came for
Two papers of K questions from a bank of N share about K squared over N. The paper draws on a large core pool and a much smaller highway works one, so the headline figure is mostly describing the half you did not come for.
Both numbers are shown above the test. The revision mode is the answer to the thin one: it comes back to the questions you have not answered right twice in a row, rather than drawing fresh and handing you the same ones anyway.
Common questions
Is this the same as a street works qualification?
No, and that is worth being clear about. Street works competence is a separate certification held at operative and supervisor level for specific units of work, and a CSCS card says nothing about whether you can set out a taper on a 50mph road. This paper practises the highway works chapter of the HS&E test, which is a different thing from the street works units themselves.
Where do the answers come from if not HSE?
Some of them come from the Safety at Street Works and Road Works code of practice, which is published free on gov.uk by the Department for Transport. That is the authority for signing, lighting and guarding, so it would be dishonest to cite HSE for it. The rest come from HSE guidance on excavations, workplace transport, dust and noise. Everything cited is free.
Why is the order of setting out a layout a question?
Because it is the difference between a crew working behind protection and a crew putting out cones with no advance warning at all. Setting out with the flow of traffic, starting with the advance signs, means traffic has always been warned about whatever you are standing next to. Starting at the excavation means the most exposed moment is the first one.
How many can I get wrong on the highway works test?
Forty five out of fifty in forty five minutes. Five wrong answers and the allowance is gone. Thirty five questions come from the core operatives chapters and fifteen from highway works, and the highway fifteen are the ones people underestimate, because most of the chapter is about a hazard that is not on your site at all: the public, arriving at fifty miles an hour having read nothing.
Are these the real questions from the highway works test?
No. CITB sells the live bank rather than publishing it, so no free site has the real questions and the ones claiming to are copying somebody. The highway questions here come from free HSE guidance on excavations, workplace transport and overhead power lines, alongside the Safety at Street Works and Road Works code of practice, which gov.uk publishes at no charge. Every answer links back to its source, which is the standard DVSA sets for its own free practice test: not the real questions, but built on the same topics.
Why do the highway works questions repeat sooner than the rest?
Because the subject pool is smaller than the core pool, and the tool says so rather than hiding it inside a combined figure. The overall bank is large enough to look comfortable; the highway works slice on its own is not, and that is the part you came to practise.
Is my progress saved separately from the other mocks?
Yes, separately from every other paper on the site. Each one has its own storage key in your browser, with no account and nothing leaving the device. The highway pool holds twenty eight questions and a paper draws fifteen, so expect about eight repeats on a second run. The page says so on the result instead of letting you assume a second attempt is a fresh test.