Serious question, what’s the go with these things? I assume you mean the method of turning right where you pull over to the left wait for straight travelling traffic to drive through then make your turn? Is it to do with the trams? Do other cities with tams do them?
[/QUOTE]
I live in ‘the bush’ and when visiting Melbourne last weekend, my husband had to do one. Yeah - it’s like going to the front of line, but in the middle of the road. And on an angle. They suck.
Serious question, what’s the go with these things? I assume you mean the method of turning right where you pull over to the left wait for straight travelling traffic to drive through then make your turn? Is it to do with the trams? Do other cities with tams do them?
[/QUOTE]
It’s only in Melbourne and ONLY where two tramlines intersect at right angles…IOW, when the road you are on and the road to the sides contains a tramline as well, and ONLY in the CBD.
If you want to make a right turn, you pull slightly to the left in the intersection, and stop still mostly facing the direction you don’t want to go. When the traffic lights change in the direction you are not facing, but want to proceed into, you go!
Yes you have! I’ve never driven in Melbourne but I’ve wandered around the CBD and I’d figured out most of what was going on with those turns, but you’ve filled in the blanks (like that it only happens where two tracks cross.
Hook turns are great - if you’re a cyclist. I do them (on my bike) at basically every intersection, and everyone knows what I’m doing 'cos they’ve been trained in the CBD.
That test is fucked. I can’t believe how fucked that test is. I got “when did a new popular literature emerge”. Apparently the 1880s (not the 1890’s - bad Aspidistra!). I also lost on knoiwng about John Cornforth (who?) John Eccles (who?) and Barry Marshall (???)
Holy crap that thing is hard, to be honest i assumed up until this point that it was all pretty simple stuff like “who is the prime minister?”. I don’t think anyone i know would be able to pass that. (Though of the 5 questions in the OP, i think more Australians would know Phar Lap than any of the others.)
Phar Lap is obviously a trick question, they are clearly trying to catch out any Kiwi desperate enough to try for Oz citizenship (YES I MEAN YOU UNCLE LARRY!). EVERYONE knows that Phar Lap was a KIWI horse!
And that’s the beauty of the Hook Turn Principle: it works wherever the PTB deign it to…even NOT at a cross-tram intersection such as the cnr of Elizabeth and Franklin Streets. Hey, you’ve gotta love the founders of Melbourne’s traffic systems.
Has there ever been any doubt that the Australian government has always run immigration as a racist affair? I don’t think the average Aussie is racist but the govt operates that way. Remember the Tampa refugees, many of them are New Zealanders now.
I finally got to do the test, and boy oh boy, am I ashamed. 12/20?!?! It’s a good thing they’re weeding out those Aussies who are in their mid thirties and were born here. Don’t want folk like us around.
However, a couple of the questions were outright bizarre. Such as
WTH? [Correct answer is the 1960’s, by the way].
We also don’t like people in this country who can’t speak English properly. So we weed them out with questions like:
It’s subtle, but it seems that if you don’t know the city where an obscure historical figure was born, the only explanation is that you’re a commie.
I can tell you, though, as a cricket nut, the questions relating to the sport were NOT written by someone who has ever discussed cricket trivia. Here’s a better question that will actually pay off in day to day life:
Q: Did you go to the MCG on the day that there was free entry, when Thommo and AB almost won a test match against impossible odds?
Correct answer: Yes. (No true Aussie would ever answer No to this question, even if they weren’t born yet then).
Whoops. Looks like I’m going to be deported as well.
12/20.
I think whoever wrote the questions on that website needs to work on their sentence construction a little.
But in general I fully agree those questions are stupid.
I got that same stupid one about “When did Australia become proud of it’s convict past?” WTF sort of question is that?
Birthplaces of people I’ve never heard of, etc, what a crock of shit.
I don’t see how anyone is passing that test with having massive cram sessions on Obscure Australian history. I was always good academically, and I’m usually one of the best in a group in trivia contests, but those questions are irrelevant.
