Analyse what's happening. First assumption is that you know what you should be doing. Second assumption is that you know what you did wrong. From there you have to work out why you did it wrong (and the answers "because I'm stupid", "because I'm no good at driving" and "because I was having a bad day" are not acceptable ;-)

One common reason for making mistakes is overload. You try to do a zillion things at once, and the result is that they all go wrong at once. Slow it down, talk through the sequence in your head, and do each one right. Another common reason for making mistakes is panic. You have plenty of time to do it, and you know what to do, but you panic and lose it. Slowing it down and talking through the sequence in your head is also good here, bcos it calms you down and forces you to think about the problem.

Try and just go through the sequence mentally or under your breath, but if you need to talk yourself through it verbally then do so. Talking to yourself make make you look odd, but actually a running commentary on your thought processes isn't a bad thing for the instructor/examiner, as they then know that you know what to do; any failure after that may just be a glitch in one of the steps, but you're likely to get it right next time.

Too much caution will not make you fail, unless you're doing an old-granny cars-never-went-over-10mph-in-my-day act. Remember that you have to be consistently going *really* slowly and consistently missing *really* large gaps at junctions before an examiner will mark you down - going round at 25mph instead of dead-on 30mph should be fine (so long as you similarly go up to 35mph in a 40mph zone), and that gives you an extra margin of decision time. This is particularly handy when you need to do the emergency stop, as the lower speed makes it less likely that you'll lock the brakes. As Liz says, they'd rather see you careful than out-to-impress.

Another "don't-panic" hint. If the examiner asks you to take a turning and you miss it, or if you go right instead of left, don't worry about it, just keep driving. Just let the examiner sort out the navigating from there, and it'll all be fine. If you realise halfway through your right turn that you should be turning left and swerve back across the traffic, or if you slam your brakes on half way across the oncoming traffic and say "What should I do?!", then you *will* fail. If you just keep going and wait for the examiner to direct you out of wherever you've got to, you *will* pass.

Graham.