I forgot to mention. Once my Driver's Ed instructor felt comfortable about my skills handling a car, he spent the last month or so of my lessons teaching me to pass the driver's test. He explained that driving for the test is completely different from driving in real-life conditions. We drove the test route several times, practiced parallel parking uphill, downhill and on flat ground near the examination centre, and he explained some of the "gotchas" for which the drivers' examiners knock off points. That helped a lot -- both with driving skill and test-nerves.