The healthcare professions test is the national test that opens the degree courses such as nursing, physiotherapy, midwifery and the other health degrees. It is not the TOLC-MED and it is not the medicine “filter semester”: it has its own structure, its own scoring and — something that surprises those coming from the TOLC tests — a higher penalty for mistakes. Here you will find how it is built, how the ranking is constructed and a plan area by area. If you want to jump straight to how I follow you in lessons, see the healthcare professions test preparation page.
First thing: which year it is and what is confirmed
The rules in this post are those of the 2026/27 academic year, set by the Ministerial Decree no. 1003 of 6 August 2026 of the MUR (Italy’s Ministry of Universities and Research). According to the decree the test in Italian was held on 16 September 2026 at 11:00 and the one in English on 17 September, with 100 minutes available. So if you are reading in October 2026, this year’s session has already passed.
The dates of the next edition have not yet been published, and I leave them out of this post instead of guessing. The decree changes every year, so the structure and scoring below must be re-read against the new decree as soon as it comes out. Where to check: the website of the MUR, the Universitaly portal and, above all, the call of your own university. The decree establishes that the calls are issued by rectoral decree at least 30 days before the test (art. 8), so that is where you will find registration, venues and procedures.
A detail that is often missed: the test is prepared by each university and is identical for all the courses of that university (art. 2). There is no single national test with the same questions everywhere: there is a national scheme, and each institution writes its own questions inside that scheme. On top of that, each university has you indicate an order of preference among the courses for which you sat the test.
How the test is built
Sixty multiple-choice questions, five options, only one correct, in a maximum time of 100 minutes. That works out at an average of one minute and forty seconds per question. The areas, with their weight in the total:
- Biology — 23 questions (about 38%)
- Chemistry — 15 questions (25%)
- Physics and maths — 13 questions (about 22%)
- Logical reasoning and problems — 5 questions
- Reading skills and knowledge acquired in your studies — 4 questions
The last two together are worth 9 questions out of 60, that is 15%. Biology alone (23 questions) weighs more than physics, maths, logic and reading put together (22). It is a snapshot of where study time goes.
The scoring and the rule on skipped questions
The decree assigns a maximum of 90 points: +1.5 for each correct answer, −0.4 for each wrong one, 0 for each skipped one. Only candidates with a score above zero are eligible, and anyone who gave no answers at all is left out of the ranking. Beyond eligibility the decree sets no threshold: universities draw up the rankings on the score and the places, which for 2026/27 the MUR indicates as 39,624 for the three-year degrees, are divided among the universities by a later decree. What you need to get in therefore depends on the places on the course you choose and on who else sat the test.
A concrete difference from the TOLC tests, which have +1 and −0.25: here answering a five-option question completely at random has a slightly negative expected value. If you can exclude options as definitely wrong and choose at random among the rest, the expected value of that question is:
With it is about : better to skip. With just one option excluded it rises to , with two to about , with three to . The break-even point is a probability of guessing right of about 21% (). The practical rule: answer when you can discard at least one option with certainty, skip when all five seem equally possible.
Tie-breaks: why biology weighs twice
When two candidates have the same score, the decree (art. 4) looks in order at the score obtained in the questions on biology, chemistry, physics and maths, logical reasoning, reading skills. Only if still level does the younger candidate prevail (the priorities set out in the decree remain for a disability of 66% or more or for a disability certified under Law 104). The consequence: biology counts once in the score and a second time in the tie-break, and chemistry comes right after. If you have to choose where to invest an extra hour, that is where.
What is in the syllabus
The official syllabus is Annex A of the decree, and it is written at the level of the national guidelines for the licei and the guidelines for technical and vocational schools. It is not a university syllabus. In brief, area by area:
- Biology. Chemistry of living things, organic molecules and enzymes, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, membrane and transport, mitosis and meiosis, Mendelian and molecular genetics (DNA replication, genetic code, protein synthesis), evolution, biotechnology, human anatomy and physiology with homeostasis, bioenergetics (ATP, glycolysis, respiration, photosynthesis).
- Chemistry. Structure of the atom and the periodic table, bonds and intermolecular forces, inorganic nomenclature, mole and stoichiometry, solutions and concentrations, equilibria, kinetics, redox reactions, acids and bases with pH and buffers, fundamentals of organic chemistry with functional groups.
- Physics. Quantities and units of measurement, kinematics, dynamics and conservation laws, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and electromagnetism (Coulomb, capacitors, Ohm, Kirchhoff, induction).
- Maths. Algebra, proportions and percentages, powers, radicals and logarithms, equations and inequalities, elementary functions including trigonometric ones, analytic geometry up to conic sections, notions of probability and statistics.
- Logical reasoning and reading. Completing a reasoning consistent with the premises, also in symbolic form; understanding short texts, uncommon vocabulary, cohesion, inferences; finding your bearings in space and historical time, knowing the main institutions and basic legal and economic phenomena.
The physics and maths part is broader than 13 questions would suggest: a programme that runs from proportions to trigonometry and Kirchhoff, to be covered with few questions per topic. That is why it is better to work by type of question and not by chapter.
A twelve-week plan
This is a plan built on the weights above. Recalibrate it backwards from the test date when the call has come out.
Week 1 — diagnosis. One complete timed mock exam. Note your errors by type (“mixed up the phase of the cell cycle”, “unit conversion error”, “skipped with an option I could already have discarded”), not generically by subject.
Weeks 2-4 — biology. Cell, genetics, anatomy and physiology, bioenergetics. Diagrams learned by heart, then questions: twenty a day, with every error recorded on a page of recurring errors.
Weeks 5-7 — chemistry. Start from the mole and stoichiometry, because they support everything else. Then solutions, acids and bases, redox reactions; organic chemistry at the end and by functional groups. In this phase keep 15 minutes a day of biology so as not to lose it.
Weeks 8-9 — physics and maths. Units of measurement, kinematics and dynamics, fluids, circuits, then algebra, logarithms, trigonometry. Goal: recognise the type of question quickly, because with under two minutes there is no time to reconstruct a formula.
Week 10 — logical reasoning and reading. A few hours well spent: deductions from premises, negations, one passage a day with the question read before the text, revision of the main turning points in history and institutions.
Week 11 — full mock exams. Two or three, timed, reviewed question by question with the page of errors. Practise the rule on skipped questions: mark with a sign the questions where you answered knowing you could rule out only one option and count at the end how it went.
Week 12 — light revision. A last mock exam in mid-week, then stop. The day before, just the diagrams.
The mistakes that cost the most points
- Studying only biology. It weighs a lot, but 28 questions out of 60 are chemistry, physics and maths, which you can’t get to with memory alone. A good mark in biology and zero in physics puts you below someone balanced.
- Neglecting the 9 non-scientific questions. They are just 9 questions, but they are worth up to 13.5 points and they train in a few well-spent hours.
- Answering everything or skipping too much. Both extremes cost you. You only see it by recording in mock exams how many “gut-feeling” answers you give and how they go.
- Learning without doing questions. The test rewards quick recognition: knowing what pH is is not enough, you need to do the calculation of a dilution in thirty seconds.
- Not training for time. One minute and forty seconds per question is little for calculation questions. If you spend four on one, you lose two elsewhere.
How we work in lessons
I start from a diagnostic mock exam, to see whether what you lack is method, the base of a subject or whether it is time management that loses you points. From there we build a plan by areas that follows the real weights of the test, alternating guided revision, timed questions and mock exams reviewed together, online with a graphics tablet and shared screen. If biology is already solid, time goes to chemistry and physics, and vice versa.
For the full picture of all the tests I prepare for there is the Admission tests page; for the scientific foundations, sciences, physics and maths. If your plan also goes through Medicine, read how the filter semester works: for some health degrees defined as “related”, art. 6 of the decree passes unfilled places to the ranking of the related courses of the filter semester, and provides for a possible supplementary test whose date is deferred to a later measure.
If you want to understand where to start, I offer you a free introductory call: you tell me where you are and I tell you honestly how many weeks you need and on what.
Measure yourself right away with the free healthcare professions test mock exam: same structure, same time, same scoring as the decree. The sources used in this post are DM no. 1003 of 6 August 2026 with its Annex A and the MUR press release on the 2026/27 places (all in Italian).
