Any Mercedes trucker here? question about gears + speed

Hi lads:

New to here, and new to the trucks world too. Just started my training with a driving school in Dublin about 1 months ago, after I paid around 2K euro for the truck driving training, today I failed my 1st test.

Well basicly its an easy story - I learned how to use the gears from a FULL licence driver, and my instructor didn't say I did wrong on the gears as well everytime when I was driving. but today when I went to the test, the tester told me he marked ALL for my gears, 'you were on the wrong gear on the wrong speed all the time'. WTF, I did 2 times pre-test and none the tester said anything to me about my gears. although I m a newbie for trucks, but I really don't understand what way I should go for the gears. trucks are different, gears are different too. some have 6 gears, some have 7, the one I drove a 2008 reg Mercedes 1832 has 8 forward gears plus a R.

Basicly what I did was - I start my driving on the 3rd, because of the driving school's truck is allways empty. and I found if I started from the 3rd, its easier to build up the speed. and each time if I gave too much gas, when I try to gear up, it will jump from the 3rd to the 5th. from the 5th to the 7th, like that. I didn't have to press the button to change the gear from 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5 etc. the computer will decide it for me. but clearly the tester didn't like that, or he just didn't understand?

I also always use the 5th or the 6th on the roundabouts or turning. that maybe because of I was too fast, so I couldn't slow down enough to catch the 4th gear (well I just GUESS, I still dont know what gear I should use correctly). and when I m driving on a straight road, I normally just gave a quick gas, but because of the computer, I normally finish on the 7th or the 6th for a 60km/h speed.


So my questions are :

1. What gear I should use to start when my Merc 1832 is empty?
2. What gear I should use for the small roundabouts and making a turn?
3. Whats the correct gear for the correct speed for the Merc 1832? (if I can pass my 2nd test then my next truck would be a Merc 2555, also 2008 reg). I mean whats the best gear for 30-40 km/h, the best gear for 40-50 km/h, and the best gear for 50-60km/h etc. like that.


I dont really want to go back to ask my instructor cause he doesnt think I did anything wrong, and so are the other instructors in the same driving school. I was told I just met a bad tester. but I still have no idea about the gears on a truck, so after I quick search on google, I found here maybe is my best place to ask the questions, although in some other places maybe trucks are different, but hopefully someone from Europa or someone does driving a Merc truck can understand what I m saying.

Cheers lads.


K.