Andy Stubbings writes:
"I bought a Japanese book on how to
pass the 400cc test and decided to kill two birds with one stone and learn some motoring terms as well as how to ride a bike and take the test. Maybe other people will tell you the test is easy, but having only practiced on a 250 and sitting on a 400 for the first time at the starting gate I was very nervous. It took me a few times to get used to the bike and course, and paying 1700 yen [this amount varies by location] a time is a lot cheaper than going to a school (where you have to pay an entrance fee of 50000, ten lessons at 3000 each hour, 5000 for a test certificate and other charges!). I'm not ashamed to admit it took me 6 times to pass as I get pretty nervous about things that are important for me to get right, and the examiners will stop you for any thing not exactly correct (more than the examiners at a school), such as stalling the engine, hitting a cone on the figure-of-eight, slalom, T-junction and other obstacles, or not going at the correct speed going into the emergency stop. All of these things were very new to me on a bike I had never practiced on before (VFR 400). The bastards also had another bike (a Yamaha I think) that had awful balance. They had most of their failures on that bike!). "A foreign license automatically converts to a 2nd level, but you have the option of going to the test center and going around the course on a 750cc just to impress the tester that you can actually ride a big bike, and they are a bit more lenient in giving you an oogata menkyo. If you don't take the 750cc test there and then you have to apply at a later time and they assume you haven't ridden a big bike before and are very strict (not sure about going to a riding school since I didn't bother).