Every year I get the same questions about the TOLC score (the TOLC is the family of university admission tests run by the CISIA consortium), almost always in the last weeks before the test: “is it worth answering even if I’m not sure?”, “how much do I need to get in?”, “if I get ten questions wrong, how much do I really lose?”. They are legitimate questions, because the TOLC scoring system is not like the one we are used to at school — and whoever doesn’t understand it well ends up losing points that, with the same preparation, they could have kept.
In this post I put together what I always explain to my students before a practice test: how the score is calculated in each CISIA test, the precise maths of when guessing pays off (and when it is a net loss), and how to get your bearings on the threshold you need for the course you are interested in.
How the TOLC score works
All the tests of the CISIA consortium — TOLC-I, TOLC-E, TOLC-S, TOLC-F, TOLC-B, TOLC-PSI, TOLC-AV, TOLC-SU, TOLC-SPS, TOLC-LP — use the same scoring logic on the sections that count towards the ranking:
- +1 point for each correct answer
- 0 points if you leave the question blank
- −0.25 points for each wrong answer
What changes from test to test is the number of questions and so the maximum score. The TOLC-I (the engineering admission test), for example, has 50 questions in the sections that count (maths, logic, reading comprehension, science) and a maximum of 50 points. The TOLC-E (economics) has 36 in the sections that count, with a maximum of 36 points. The TOLC-F has 50 questions (maximum 50 points), the TOLC-S 55 (maximum 55), the TOLC-SPS 40 and the TOLC-LP 30. The English section, where present, almost always doesn’t count towards the main score: universities use it to assess whether you will need language catch-up courses.
One thing I often see confused: the TOLC score is not a percentage of correct answers. If you answer all the questions and get 80% right, your score is not “80% of the maximum”, because each mistake also takes points away from you even if you answered well elsewhere. It is a net score, where correct answers and mistakes offset each other — and that is precisely why the strategy on “when to answer” matters almost as much as the preparation on content.
The syllabus and structure of each TOLC can change from one year to the next. Before counting the questions from memory, always check the official structure for the current year on the CISIA website — here I am talking about the logic of the scoring, which has been stable for years, not the exact number of questions per section, which can vary.
The maths of when guessing pays off
This is where most students get the strategy wrong, often without even realising. “It’s only −0.25 anyway” is the most common reasoning and also the most misleading, because it ignores that every TOLC question has 5 answer options, only one of them correct (CISIA states this in the regulations), and the calculation changes radically depending on how many you have already ruled out.
The principle is that of expected value: if you answer at random among remaining options, the probability of guessing right is and that of getting it wrong is . The expected value of the answer is:
No option ruled out (all five in play)
The expected value is exactly zero: answering at random is worth, on average, the same as leaving it blank, but with added variance. On 20 questions all guessed at random the result is unpredictable and oscillates around zero. It is not a strategy, it is an even bet.
One option ruled out (4 in play)
The expected value becomes positive, but only slightly: about 6 hundredths of a point per answer, with a lot of risk.
Two options ruled out (3 in play)
Here the margin starts to be appreciable. It is the threshold beyond which, over a sufficient number of questions, you gain points reliably.
Three options ruled out (2 in play)
The expected value is clearly positive: if you have eliminated at least three options out of five, always answer.
Four options ruled out (only 1 left)
At that point it is no longer “answering at random”: you have solved the question. It is worth with certainty.
The practical rule in short: eliminate as many options as you can by reasoning (even just by logical exclusion, without having to solve the exercise in full), and answer with a calm mind when three or fewer remain. If after a serious attempt you can’t eliminate even one option, leaving it blank has the same expected value as guessing and protects against variance.
A common mistake: treating “almost sure” as “sure”
There is a second mistake, less discussed than the first but just as costly: answering with confidence a question on which you are really only fairly sure, without having checked. The expected value calculation above assumes that you are truly answering at random among the remaining options — but if you think you know the answer and in reality your true confidence is, say, 60%, the calculation changes:
Still positive, but the point is another: perceived confidence often doesn’t match the real one, especially under time pressure. The best way to calibrate it is to do enough timed practice tests to learn to recognise, while you answer, the difference between “I know it” and “I feel like I know it” — it is a skill that is trained, not an innate talent.
What threshold you need for your course
Here we have to be honest: there is no single threshold, and anyone who gives you a fixed, universal one is oversimplifying. The TOLC score goes into a ranking that varies by:
- University and course: the same degree at two different universities can have very different entry thresholds, because they depend on the number of places and the number of candidates that year.
- Year: the useful threshold changes every session, based on how many people enrol and how well they do on average.
- Other factors: for some courses (Medicine above all) bonuses linked to the school-leaving exam or other criteria set by the call also count, not just the pure TOLC score.
The only reliable way to know the threshold you need is to read the official call of the university and the course you are interested in, looking at the thresholds of past sessions as a reference — not as a guarantee, because they can shift. To get an idea of how high they are in general: at the most sought-after universities for Medicine, the useful thresholds in recent sessions have been around 45-50 points out of 50, which gives an idea of how little room for error there is in highly competitive limited-entry courses. For less competitive courses or universities with more places available, the margin is typically wider.
A practical tip: don’t fixate on a number read once on a forum. Look at the trend of the last 2-3 sessions for the same course, if available, to see whether the threshold is stable or moving.
For the section that weighs most in Engineering courses there is TOLC-I maths: topics and worked exercises; for choosing the session, When to take the TOLC. The guides by area are TOLC-B, TOLC-F and TOLC-S.
How to train to manage the score in real time
Knowing the theory of expected value isn’t enough if, on the day of the test, you are under time pressure and don’t apply the rule. The way I build this skill with my students is by making it automatic before the test, not during it:
- Timed practice tests with the same scoring scheme. Only like this do you really get used to deciding in real time between “I answer”, “I eliminate an option and then decide” and “I leave it blank”, instead of finding out on test day.
- Analysis of mistakes by category after each practice test: how many wrong answers were “I know the answer but made a calculation mistake” against how many were “I guessed without having eliminated anything”? They are two different problems, and only the second category is corrected by changing strategy, not by studying more.
- Reviewing the score obtained, not just the number of correct answers. A common mistake is to concentrate on “how many I got right” while ignoring how many you lost through avoidable errors — the difference between the two numbers is where you gain the most in a short time.
You can train for free with the site’s practice tests, which replicate the same official scoring scheme (+1 / 0 / −0.25) as the real test: the TOLC-I practice test for engineering and the TOLC-E practice test for economics. Both show the final score and the marking with the correct answers, so you can check at once where you applied the strategy well and where not. How to run the practice test and how to read the result section by section, with the table of mistakes, is in TOLC practice test: how to do it and read the result.
If you are interested in complete preparation (not just the scoring strategy, but the content too) you’ll find the dedicated guides on how to pass the TOLC-I, which also goes deeper into time strategy as well as scoring strategy, and the comparison Bocconi or TOLC-E for those aiming at economics. Those preparing for Medicine will find the full picture in the guide to the TOLC-MED. For the full picture of how I prepare the maths part, which in almost all these tests weighs more than any other section, there is the dedicated subject page.
Frequently asked questions
Can the TOLC score be negative? Yes, in theory: if you get many more questions wrong than you get right, the net score falls below zero. In practice it rarely happens to someone who has studied, because it is enough to leave blank the questions on which you haven’t eliminated any option to avoid falling below zero.
Is it worth always answering “so as not to leave it empty”? No. It is exactly the opposite mistake to never answering: answering at random without having eliminated options has an expected value of zero and a real risk of lowering the score in sessions where luck doesn’t turn in your favour.
Does taking the TOLC more than once increase the chances of getting in? It helps, because almost all universities consider the best score obtained by the deadline of the call. But it is not a way to “spam” attempts without studying: every session still requires preparation, and turning up unprepared for a second attempt rarely changes the result compared with the first.
Does the score of each section count separately or only the total? It depends on the university’s call: some courses look only at the total score, others impose minimum thresholds for each section (typical, for example, of some economics tests like the Cattolica). Always check the specific call, because in these cases even a strong section doesn’t make up for a section below the threshold.
Do I need a calculator during the TOLC to work out the score? No: the system calculates the score automatically and tells you at the end (or, in some tests, at the end of each section). You don’t have to keep count yourself during the test — concentrate on the questions, not on the arithmetic of the score.
If you want to understand where you really stand before studying anything, the quickest way is a free introductory call: we do a practice test together or look at your results, and I tell you honestly how many points you are missing and what to concentrate the time you have on.
