This was my experience. I renewed my license in the US only a month before I came to Japan, so the driving center told me I was a new driver and had to start over.

They made me keep retaking the test until I paid extra for a practice run on the course. I won't say how many times I took it, but I will say that I did legitimately fail one time - my tire slipped off the road on a hard turn, which is an automatic failure.

But the thing is, I'm 100% certain that they passed me specifically because I paid for that practice run, not because of how well I drove that day. Why? Because on the day they passed me - I let my tire slip off the road. An automatic failure.

The test has literally nothing to do with how you drive. And every story I've heard from people who passed on their first try is the same story - they paid for lessons, they went through the motions, they got their license.