Every year the same message arrives: “I bought the TOLC-E manual to prepare for the Cattolica test”. Let’s stop for a moment, because it is a misunderstanding that costs weeks of study on the wrong topics. The entrance test for Economics at the Università Cattolica (the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart) is not the TOLC-E. It is called TIEC (Test di Ingresso a Economia in Cattolica, the Cattolica Economics entrance test), it is a proprietary test of the university, and the TOLC-E, the one the other state universities use, has nothing to do with it: it is not required, not accepted, and replaces nothing. If you find manuals that put “TIEC + TOLC-E” together in the title, it is only because some logic and maths topics overlap commercially, not because the two tests are interchangeable.
That being clear, the TIEC has an internal logic of its own (thresholds per section, a penalty on wrong answers, an English section that counts towards the score as in private-university tests) that is worth understanding before you open a book. And it is also the reason I built a free practice test for the Cattolica test: 48 questions, 60 minutes, thresholds per section calculated exactly as in the real test, so you find out your real situation before the official session, not after.
Structure and scoring: the thing nobody reads properly
The TIEC is 48 questions in 60 minutes, divided into four sections of 12 questions each:
- Logic
- Maths
- Text comprehension and general knowledge
- English
The score per answer, according to the official call: +1.05 correct, –0.21 wrong, 0 omitted. So far it looks like a test like many others. The part that changes everything is the minimum thresholds per section, not just the total:
- at least 6 correct answers in Logic
- at least 6 in Text comprehension and general knowledge
- at least 6 in English
- at least 4 in Maths
- and a minimum total score of 25 points
All the conditions must be true together. This means you can reach 30 points in total and still be excluded, if you are below the threshold in one section, typically English, which I talk about below. It is the most dangerous misjudgement I see: a student looks at the overall score of the practice tests, finds it reassuring, and ignores that one section below the threshold wipes out everything else. Preparing for the TIEC means preparing for four minimum exams, not for an average score.
On top of this come up to 6 bonus points from certificates: 2 points from IT certificates, 4 from language certificates. If you already have them, check the call for which are recognised and how to declare them: it is free score that many people forget to report.
The four sections: what they ask and how to prepare
Logic. Sequences, verbal and numerical reasoning, deductions. As with any logic test, the level rises with the volume of exercises, not with theory: the types are a finite number and after a hundred exercises you recognise them before you finish reading the question. It is the section where the time per question drops fastest with practice.
Maths. Here is the good news: the TIEC is lighter than Bocconi and LUISS. It stays on number sets, percentages, basic powers and logarithms, elementary algebra: no trigonometry, no calculus. The Year 3-4 high school programme, asked under the clock. The threshold of just 4 correct answers out of 12 makes it, on paper, the “easiest” section to pass at minimum, but beware: the total of 25 points must still be reached, so it is not a section to neglect, only one not to fear excessively. If basic maths still makes you insecure, it is the natural starting point with a maths path aimed at closing the gaps before moving on to the rest.
Text comprehension and general knowledge. Passages to be read with attention to the text, not to the world: the correct answer is the one supported by the passage, not the one that is generically true. The general knowledge part, on the other hand, requires different training, more like a broad revision than a vertical study: current affairs, recent history, geography, a bit of basic economics.
English. And this is the real bottleneck, for a structural reason: the TIEC is one of the very few Italian admission tests in which English is a marked section, with a minimum threshold of its own (6 out of 12) and not just an informational test as in other tests. The level required is around B2. I regularly see students who are excellent in logic and maths and stay out because of three correct answers in English, not because they don’t know English “in general”, but because they have never trained it on the specific format (grammar, academic vocabulary, comprehension of a text in the language under the clock). If your school English is stuck at a few years ago, targeted work on English before the session is probably the investment with the best cost/benefit ratio of the whole TIEC preparation, because it is the section where the score “given away” by those who don’t prepare is highest.
The strategy on omissions
With –0.21 per mistake and 0 for the omitted answer, the calculation is simple but must be done honestly: the call doesn’t say how many options each question has, but the official demos published by the university have four per question; with four options, answering completely at random has an expected value of 0.25 × 1.05 − 0.75 × 0.21 = +0.105 points per question (the practice test uses four options per question, like the real test). Always check the official demo for the current year. Statistically it always pays to attempt, even completely blind, but this is abstract maths, not exam-hall psychology. In practice:
- if you have ruled out at least one option, the expected value goes up and attempting is almost always right;
- if you are completely in the dark, attempting still has a positive expected value, but only if the time saved doesn’t cost you an easy question later on;
- the real risk is not the single omission: it is spending three minutes on a tricky question and not reaching the end of the section, losing easy questions that were worth the same point.
With 60 minutes for 48 questions you have 1 minute 15 seconds per question on average, but the sections are not timed separately as in other CISIA tests, so you can (and must) redistribute time: less on the comprehension passages if you read quickly, more on maths if you need to calculate calmly. Mark and move on remains rule number one.
Sessions, places and when to turn up
The TIEC takes place in several sessions from February to September, and this is an advantage only if you use it well: places often run out already in the first one or two sessions. For Economics and business management in Milan, for example, there are 840 places in total, a number that seems ample until you consider how many candidates show up at the February and March sessions. Booking works by score bands (those with ≥35 points book first, then ≥30, then ≥25, with progressive windows), so a high score in an early session is not only a question of merit: it is a concrete logistical advantage on which course and which campus you actually manage to get.
One test is valid for all the economics courses in Italian in Milan and for the Rome campus; Piacenza is an exception: there is no test there, only an interview. Each attempt costs €60. There is no alternative route with SAT or ACT for the ordinary Italian track: the only exemption from the test is for those who have already earned at least 8 ECTS credits in specific university exams named in the call, a condition that concerns few cases (typically students who have already started another university course).
The same rule holds as everywhere in proprietary tests: it pays to turn up early and more than once, if the call allows it, because a first session with a low score burns nothing, it only gives you information, and perhaps a better waiting-list place than the next session.
Which test for which university
A recap of the map of tests for economics, because it is where most confusion arises:
- Bocconi → Bocconi online test (or SAT/ACT as an alternative) — free practice test
- Cattolica → TIEC (this guide), its proprietary test: the TOLC-E isn’t needed — free practice test
- LUISS → LUISS test (or SAT/ACT/IB for direct admission) — free practice test
- State universities (Statale, Bicocca, Bologna, Padova…) → TOLC-E of CISIA: the comparison with Bocconi is in this guide
How we work
I always start from a timed practice test (the one on the site or equivalent material) to see not the total score, but section by section against the thresholds. It is the only way to know whether you are really risking exclusion or whether a low overall score actually hides a situation that is already above the threshold everywhere. From there we build the plan: someone who arrives with solid logic and maths but English below 6/12 does very different work from someone with the opposite problem.
Lessons concentrate on the sections where recovery is quickest, almost always maths and English, because logic improves above all with the volume of exercises that I assign and correct between one lesson and the next. We work online with a graphics tablet and shared screen, and in the last weeks before the session the practice tests are done against the clock and reviewed question by question: knowing the score isn’t enough, you need to understand whether the mistake is one of knowledge, of reading or of time management.
On costs: you will find updated rates for a single lesson and the 10-hour package on the pricing page. Those who arrive with a single weak point, often English, sometimes solve it with a few targeted lessons; those who need to rebuild several sections do better with a package.
If you want to understand where you stand against the TIEC thresholds before investing time or money in a manual, I suggest a free 30-minute introductory call: we look together at where you stand section by section and I tell you honestly how many hours you need, and on what.
If instead you are also considering other routes for economics, Bocconi first of all, I wrote a specific comparison on Bocconi test and TOLC-E that can help you work out where to concentrate your energies if you are preparing several tests in parallel. If plan B is a state university, the guide is the one for the TOLC-E; for psychology or politics courses there are the TOLC-PSI and the TOLC-SPS.
The rules, scores and dates of the TIEC may change from one year to the next: before setting up any study plan, always check the official call on unicatt.it for the academic year you are interested in.
The TIEC is not a test you pass through innate talent in logic or an encyclopaedic general knowledge. You pass it by understanding that the thresholds per section count more than the total, and that English, the one section almost nobody treats as “to be studied”, is often the difference between in and out.
