I suggest you learn Chinese as a baby, not student, cause it gonna be very hard for a foreign speaker to understand Chinese grammar.
like 下, it can has many meanings, e.g. lower, next, enter, action of stop, conquer, remove something from somebody, put yourself into, draw a conclusion, measure words = times, less than. I didn't write all meanings of 下.
To be honest i dont really know how to answer your question, because my Chinese teacher didnt teach me when i was a child. She did teach me 留下 记下 as phrases and they are high frequently phrases, just remember it. as 停下50辆车, you can also say 停50辆车 which we we use a lot more in spoken Chinese.
sorry for poor grammar :)