You can take all the practice tests for the required General, Combination, and Air-Brake on this website, although I prefer TruckerCountry.com. You definitely should practice and practice on those tests until your routinely and easily score 90+% every time. I would also practice and take the tests for Doubles/Triples, Tanker no matter what type of trucking to may want to do. I can give you a procedure that is guaranteed to get you to pass those practice tests, if you like.
With regards to taking online portion of ELDT, I wouldn’t spend time doing that. You have to take the “behind the wheel” portion of your ELDT training at a provider, usually a CDL school, and I can’t imagine the CDL school is going to charge you less to attend just the “behind the wheel” portion of school.
You also must pass a DOT Medical Exam and get a medical card to get your permit. If you pay for that before getting to CDL school they school MAY, OR MAY NOT, accept that medical card. Ask the school beforehand or just get examined when and how the school tells you. Remember the DOT doctor is not your “partner in health”, he’s not your family doctor. He has one job, to disqualify anyone for the reasons the DOT says. Be extremely careful about what you mention. For example, you wouldn’t likely make an appointment with the IRS and bring in all of your financial records and just dump them on the IRS desk and ask them to tell you if they found something wrong. If the IRS asked you a question you would tell them the exact answer to that one question and not one single word extra. I’d recommend you treat the DOT doctor like you would treat an IRS auditor. Don’t lie, but don’t give so much as one word more than necessary. They don’t give you a prize for disclosing every pain, cough, scare, or worry about anything medically related. He’s not your friend and his future doesn’t depend on you paying rent. Protect yourself. Nobody cares about your future as you should care about your future. The DOT doctor is not some CSI investigation lab. All they will know is what you write on the form for them to read. They are going to ask a bunch of yes/no questions. Any “yes” you must thoroughly explain and the doctor gets to decide when your explanation is enough or fails you. Does he need to know your back once hurt when you moved a couch in 2004? Do you have the names, dates, phone numbers of doctors or nurses and facilities that you visited and then told you to take a Tylenol? BTW, if you weigh more than you should, any mention of trouble sleeping or snoring will likely put you on a path to an expensive sleep study before you can get your medical card. They aren’t looking to find out about a history of hang-nails or sunburn so don’t mention anything that gives them an excuse to dig more into your past unless you want to go through all of that. The urine test will test for sugar and proteins so diabetes cannot be hidden. They DO NOT test for drugs. That test is done before you get hired.
