On September 9, 2008, a test was administered to the students enrolled for the first time in the five-year Mathematics program of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).

The test was programmed in Maple TA in four blocks which jointly included the main points of the mathematics syllabi of secondary education. The current version, TD-08, is an improved version of TD-07, which was administered in September 2007 for the first time, and can be accessed at http://kolmogorov.upc.es:8080/classes/Diagnostic. In the current version, the student can choose either Catalan or Spanish, but we are working in order to include also English.

By design, but also by the functionality of its implementation, the test provides a useful and manageable system for finding out the mathematical shortcomings of each student with respect to their expected education on entering the university.

Using the results of the test, a tutorial scheme is designed on an individual basis for all those students that need to catch up in one or more of the sections. Since each student knows immeditely his or her scores, the tutorial actions are not only accepted, but much appreciated.

The test TD-08 will be administered for the first time to freshmen of the Civil Engineering School of the UPC. It will be on the third week of September 2009 and in this case it includes about twenty questions related to the Physics syllabi of the secondary education. It is expected that later editions will also be administered to students of other engineering schools of the UPC.

In the design of TD-07 and TD-08 the author had the collaboration of Jaume Franch, Maria Rosa Estela and Daniel Bosch. The implementation work in Maple TA was carried out mainly by Francesd d'A. Massanés. The resources for this initiative were provided in the main by the Facultat de Matemàtiques i Estadística (FME) of the UPC, but the inspiration came, for the most part, from discussions with people of the WebALT and JEM teams, and most decisively with Mika Seppälä and Olga Caprotti. My warmest thanks to all!

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