What is the CEnT-S exam? A complete guide for international students

Here are the newly announced updates on the CEnT-S test, which will replace the TOLC test previously administered by Politecnico di Milano.

The preparation course for the CEnT-S and TIL-I tests is launched! Click here to see to course calendar and here for the course details.

CEnT-S

The CEnT-S is the CISIA English test required by some universities to pursue degree courses mainly held in English in Engineering, Economics, Pharmacy, and other scientific fields.

Before booking a CEnT-S, check the admission notice of your university degree course on the university’s website: there you can find the information about the admission procedures and deadlines.

CEnT-S structure

The test consists of 55 questions, divided into 5 sections:

• Mathematics
• Reasoning on texts and data
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics.

You can find CEnT-S syllabus in more detail here.

CEnT-S

Each section must be completed within a set time limit: once the time is up, you must proceed to the next section. If you complete the section before the time runs out, you can move on to the next one. Please consider that in this case you will not be able to use the remaining time to complete other sections of the test and that you will not be able to go back to the previous section.

Evaluation of the test and normalisation

The CEnT-S result is based on the number of correct, unanswered, incorrect responses, that sum up to a raw score:

• 1 point for each correct answer
• 0 points for each unanswered question
• a penalty of 0.25 points for each incorrect answer.

The normalised score (the final official test result) is calculated from the raw score, which is based on the answers given to each question (as indicated on the test Syllabus page). A normalisation coefficient is then added to this number, which is larger the more difficult the test taken turns out to be: a more difficult test is compensated by a higher normalisation coefficient. The coefficient is calculated at the end of the macro-period by analysing the results of the questions (whose difficulty is not known in advance) and thus determining the actual level of difficulty of each test.

The normalised score will be available in the CISIA Student Area only at the end of the macro-period in which the test has been taken:

• by January 30th for the first macro-period
• by March 31st for the second macro-period
• by June 30th for the third macro-period
• by October 30th for the fourth macro-period.