[Katana]

You're a driving instructor yourself Tein?
I only mentioned it as my instructor told me about it when we were driving once, though we talked about a lot of things over those 50 hours.
I personally did all my lessons in my normal trainers (i think they are called sneakers in the US) as i told the instructor "all my future driving will probably be in trainers so i might as well get used to driving the car with them on".

I seen a few posts on here mention using the rev counter as a guide, this is good to start with but shouldn't be relied upon once you are used to the cars rev ranges as it's another distraction. I used to check my all the time when learning to drive but my first car had no rev counter so i had to learn how to get in tune with the car rather than rely on instruments.

MetroMPG
The UK test isn't perfect, looking back i feel it wasn't hard enough, and it has some major flaws.
Learner drivers aren't allowed to drive on motorways, dual-carriageways are fine but not motorways, so you can't learn how to drive on them until AFTER you pass your test.
Night driving isn't compulsory or tested, you can practice if you book night lessons but it doesn't count for anything, same goes for bad weather driving, you'll have to learn it on your own time.
In the practical test only 1/3 of test takers do the emergency stop, and you only get tested on 2 out of the 3 parking maneuvers (parallel park, reverse around a corner and 3 point turn).