The TOLC-S is the test you need to get into Science degree courses: maths, physics, chemistry, natural and geological sciences, but also — and this is the part many discover late — statistics, data science and artificial intelligence. It is the TOLC that is talked about least compared with the TOLC-I and TOLC-MED, and for exactly that reason it is the one I see prepared worst: few dedicated books, few forums, and plenty of students who turn up having studied “a bit of everything” without understanding where the points really are.
If you are reading at the beginning of August and have the test in September, you are in the right window: it is five to six weeks, which is exactly the time you need if you use it well. Here I explain how the test is built, what is worth studying in what order, and the mistakes I see repeated every year.
How the TOLC-S is built
The TOLC-S is run by the CISIA consortium (the body that organises the TOLC tests for Italian universities), is taken online (from home with remote supervision, or on site depending on the university) and lasts 2 hours (120 minutes) on the sections that count towards the score. It has 55 multiple-choice questions, each with five options, divided into six sections, each with its own maximum time:
- Basic maths — 20 questions, 50 minutes
- Reasoning, problems and text comprehension — 15 questions, 30 minutes
- Biology — 5 questions, 10 minutes
- Chemistry — 5 questions, 10 minutes
- Physics — 5 questions, 10 minutes
- Earth sciences — 5 questions, 10 minutes
Plus an English section (30 questions in 15 minutes) that is assessed separately and does not count towards the main score: it is used by universities to see whether you need a language catch-up course, not for the ranking.
The scoring works like this: +1 for a correct answer, −0.25 for a wrong answer, 0 if you leave it blank. With 55 questions, the maximum is 55 points.
The first thing to note, and the one from which the whole strategy derives: basic maths is about 36% of the questions (20 out of 55) and about 42% of the time (50 minutes out of 120). It is not one section among six, it is the test. If you have 30 hours to invest, at least 18-20 go there. Every year students come to me who have spent three weeks on biology and earth sciences — 10 questions out of 55 — and are still stuck on radicals and second-degree systems.
A general warning: the CISIA structure and syllabus can change from one year to the next. Before setting up your plan, download the official syllabus for the current year from the CISIA website and compare it with what you read here and in books. Five minutes that save you from studying topics outside the programme.
A practical note that is worth points: the TOLC-S can be retaken once a month (in different months) and almost all universities take the best score among the valid attempts within the deadline of the call. So the first attempt is not a one-shot: it is a diagnosis that tells you exactly where you are losing points. If you can still book two sessions, do it.
Basic maths: this is where you win or lose
The maths programme of the TOLC-S is the high school one, but asked quickly and with no discounts on prerequisites. The topics that come back every session:
- Elementary algebra: powers and radicals, factorising polynomials, algebraic fractions, absolute value. It looks like Year 3 stuff. It is 20-25% of the section and the place where most points are lost through calculation errors.
- Equations and inequalities: second degree, fractional, irrational, with absolute value, systems. Fractional inequalities with sign study are a classic to practise until automatic.
- Functions: domain, graphs of elementary functions, transformations (translations, reflections), inverse and composite functions. Many questions are “which of these is the graph of…”, solvable in 20 seconds if you know the shapes by heart.
- Exponentials and logarithms: properties of logarithms, equations and inequalities. Two or three questions guaranteed, and 90% are solved with three properties.
- Analytic geometry in the plane: line, parabola, circle; distances, parallelism, perpendicularity.
- Trigonometry: special values, basic addition formulas, simple trigonometric equations, solving triangles.
- Euclidean and solid geometry: areas, volumes, Euclid’s and Pythagoras’ theorems, similarity.
- Basic probability and combinatorics: favourable cases over total cases, compound probability, permutations and combinations. If you are weak here, I wrote a whole post: probability and combinatorics explained properly.
- Descriptive statistics: mean, median, mode, variance and standard deviation, reading histograms and frequency tables. This is the part that surprises those coming from a high school where statistics was covered in two hours at the end of the year — and for those aiming at Statistics or Data Science, knowing how to read a distribution is literally the trade.
50 minutes for 20 questions is two and a half minutes per question. That is enough to think, but not to redo the same calculation three times. Time is gained on the “at a glance” questions (graphs, properties of logarithms, special values) and spent on the two or three elaborate questions.
The other sections, in order of points-to-effort ratio
Reasoning, problems and text comprehension (15 questions, 30 minutes). CISIA presents them as a single section, without saying how many questions are split between reasoning and problems on one side and comprehension on the other. The problems are not abstract logic quizzes like in the medicine test: they are mathematised problems — proportions, percentages, speeds and times, reasoning on sets and on number sequences. The good news is that they train very quickly: two weeks of 20 exercises a day and you go from 5/10 to 8/10. The trick is to recognise the type of problem in the first 10 seconds instead of starting to write equations.
Biology, chemistry, physics and earth sciences (5 questions and 10 minutes each). General high school level. Twenty questions on four subjects, five per subject, means you can’t study them in depth and you don’t need to: you need a solid surface. Chemistry: atomic structure, periodic table, bonds, moles and basic nomenclature. Physics: kinematics, dynamics, energy, elementary electricity. Biology: cell, DNA and protein synthesis, Mendelian genetics. Earth sciences: internal structure of the Earth, tectonics, atmosphere, solar system. If you need to revise this last part, the post on astronomical geography for the maturità (the maturità is Italy’s school-leaving exam) covers a good part of the programme.
The text comprehension part. The one nobody studies and in which almost everyone loses 2-3 avoidable points. Scientific or popular-science texts with questions on thesis, inferences and data cited. You don’t need to study: you need to do 15-20 timed passages to get the rhythm and learn to answer only with what is written in the text, without adding your own knowledge. The single most useful tip: read the questions first, then the passage.
The mistakes I see repeated
- Studying the sciences as if it were a medicine test. Five questions per subject, not 15 of in-depth biology. Those who start memorising metabolic cycles for the TOLC-S are optimising the wrong section.
- Leaving algebra aside “because I know it”. You know it with a clear mind and no stopwatch. Under time pressure, a double radical or a fractional inequality with three factors become traps. There is only one check: 30 timed exercises, and count the calculation errors.
- Not knowing the graphs of elementary functions by heart. Parabola, hyperbola, exponential, logarithm, sine, cosine, absolute value, and their translations. They are points at almost zero cost, which become two minutes lost if you have to reconstruct them by trial and error.
- Answering everything because “−0.25 is small”. A false friend. If you guess on 8 completely unknown questions, with five options you get on average 1.6 right (+1.6) and 6.4 wrong (−1.6): net gain zero, with extra risk. It becomes worthwhile as soon as you confidently rule out at least one option (about +0.06 per answer with four left, +0.17 with three). If you can’t rule out any, blank.
- Ignoring descriptive statistics. It is the most neglected topic and, for the quantitative courses, the most diagnostic. Mean and median on grouped data, the effect of outliers, the difference between variance and standard deviation: half an hour of theory and 20 exercises.
- Doing only theory until the last week. Timed mock exams from the second week, not the last. The TOLC is as much a test of time management as of knowledge.
- Arriving in September with only one attempt available. See above: it can be retaken monthly and the best counts. Not using this possibility is giving away points.
A realistic plan from now to September (5-6 weeks)
This is the timeline I have students follow who start now with normal high school foundations.
Week 1 — diagnosis. One complete timed mock exam (CISIA publishes official ones; on the site you will also find the TOLC-S mock exam, questions in Italian). Aim: to understand where you stand, not to get a good score. Then write the list of wrong topics with specific names — not “maths”, but “fractional inequalities”, “logarithms with variable base”, “compound probability”. That list is your programme.
Weeks 2-4 — maths in blocks, with targeted exercises. Recommended order: algebra and radicals → equations and inequalities → functions and graphs → exponentials and logarithms → analytic geometry → trigonometry → probability and descriptive statistics. Two or three hours of theory per block, then 25-30 exercises. Don’t move to the next block if you don’t close at 70-80%. In parallel, 20 minutes a day of reasoning problems and one comprehension passage: they cost little and pay a lot.
Week 5 — sciences and consolidation. Quick revision of the four science subjects (one day per subject, summary diagrams, no deep dives) and a complete mock exam mid-week.
Last 7-10 days — mock exams only. Two or three complete ones, timed, with detailed error analysis. No new topics. The last two days: maths formula sheet, special values, properties of logarithms, formulas for areas and volumes. Then stop, and sleep — sleeping badly the night before costs more points than an extra week of study.
Realistic total time: 35-50 hours of targeted study if you come from a recent science course; 70-90 hours if you come from a classical high school, from a technical school with little maths, or if you have been out of study for a few years. If you notice that anxiety blocks you before the mock exams, here is how I handle it with my students.
How we work in lessons
I always start from a diagnosis. We use the first hour to do a mini-test reasoned through together: I’m not only interested in what you get wrong, but why — is theory missing, is method missing, are you reading the question too hurriedly, or is it carelessness in the calculation? These are four different causes and they are cured in four different ways. Those who go wrong through carelessness don’t need more theory, they need a checking procedure.
From there I build a weekly plan: typically two lessons a week on maths (which is where the points are), one every two weeks on the sciences block, and in the last three weeks mock exams reviewed together question by question. We work online with a graphics tablet and shared screen, and we take the mock exams directly on the CISIA platform, so that on the day of the test the interface is already familiar.
On numbers: for up-to-date rates for the single lesson and the 10-hour package see the pricing page. A 10-hour package covers 4-5 weeks of intensive preparation well; the single lesson makes sense if you need to unblock two or three specific topics and manage the rest on your own.
If you want to understand whether it makes sense to work together, I offer you a free 30-minute introductory call: you tell me where you are, we do a couple of quick questions, I tell you honestly how many hours you need and on what. If I see that you are managing on your own, I’ll tell you.
For the full picture of the tests I prepare for there is the Admission tests page; for individual subjects, maths, sciences and physics. If you prefer the summary picture with packages and FAQs, there is also the TOLC-S preparation page. If your course requires a different TOLC instead, there are twin guides for the TOLC-SPS for Political Science and for the TOLC-SU for Humanities. For biology and pharmacy there are instead the guides to the TOLC-B and the TOLC-F.
The TOLC-S is an honest test: it asks for the high school programme done well and quickly, without tricks. Those who prepare for it for what it is — a maths test with five side sections — pass it.
