TEST ARCHED is the most evenly balanced of the three major Italian admission tests. Five sections, 10 questions each, 20 minutes each — perfectly symmetrical. No section dominates your score the way Mathematics does on TOLC-I. That symmetry is both the opportunity and the challenge: you can't afford to neglect anything, but you also can't be saved by being brilliant at just one subject.
This article breaks down what each section actually demands, how to manage your time, and where the tie-break order should influence your study priorities.
The five sections at a glance
TEST ARCHED gives you 100 minutes across five sections of equal weight. Each section locks when its 20-minute timer expires.
- Reading Comprehension: 10 questions, 20 minutes (2.0 min/question)
- Knowledge from Studies and History (incl. History of Art): 10 questions, 20 minutes (2.0 min/question)
- Logical Reasoning: 10 questions, 20 minutes (2.0 min/question)
- Drawing and Representation: 10 questions, 20 minutes (2.0 min/question)
- Mathematics and Physics: 10 questions, 20 minutes (2.0 min/question)
Section 1: Reading Comprehension (10 questions, 20 minutes)
Tests your ability to understand and analyse written Italian texts. You'll get passages from scientific essays, literary works, journalism, or contemporary public debate, then answer questions about meaning, arguments, and conclusions.
This is the most transferable section — it overlaps heavily with TOLC-I's Reading Comprehension. If you're preparing for both tests (say, Engineering and Architecture at different universities), work you put into this section counts twice.
Strategy: read the passage once, carefully and completely, before touching the questions. Then answer each question by going back to the specific paragraph it references. The traps are always options that sound right but contradict one detail in the text. Going back costs 30 seconds but prevents the most common errors.
Section 2: Knowledge from Studies and History, including History of Art (10 questions, 20 minutes)
This is the section that separates ARCHED from every other Italian admission test. Neither TOLC-I nor CEnT-S tests anything like it.
Topics: historical and cultural phenomena, artistic and architectural movements and their major works, the ability to place events, buildings, and artworks in time and geographic context, knowledge of national and international institutions, and basic legal, economic, and civic comprehension.
In practice, this means questions like: identifying which century a building was constructed in, matching an architectural style to its movement, recognising the significance of a historical event in shaping urban development, or understanding the role of an international institution. The questions demand cultural breadth — not deep specialist knowledge, but wide familiarity with Western art, architecture, and history.
Strategy: this section rewards students who read broadly and visit museums, not students who cram dates the night before. If you're starting from a weak cultural base, begin studying this section earliest — it's the one that improves most slowly because it depends on accumulated knowledge rather than procedural skills. Use timelines of architectural movements as your primary study tool: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Modernism, Contemporary — know the approximate dates, key architects, and defining characteristics of each.
Section 3: Logical Reasoning (10 questions, 20 minutes)
Tests your ability to complete logical arguments from symbolic or verbal premises. Same skill as TOLC-I's Logic section and CEnT-S's Reasoning section — structured thinking under pressure.
But here's why Logic matters more on ARCHED than on any other test: it's the first tie-breaker. In case of equal total scores, the candidate with the higher Logical Reasoning score wins. Given that architecture programmes have limited seats and ties are common, this section functionally decides who gets the last available spots.
Strategy: treat Logic as your highest-priority section, even though it's "only" 20% of your score like everything else. The tie-break order (Logic → Reading → Drawing → Math/Physics → Knowledge/History → youngest) means a strong Logic score is insurance against ties. Read premises twice before looking at options. If a question stumps you for more than 2 minutes, mark your best guess and move on — Logic questions rarely yield to extra time.
Section 4: Drawing and Representation (10 questions, 20 minutes)
The most unique section on any Italian admission test. No formula sheet helps here. No amount of algebra substitutes for the ability to read a floor plan.
Topics: analysing drawings, graphics, and visual representations, matching representations to the objects they depict, reading piante (floor plans), prospetti (elevations), and assonometrie (axonometric projections). The questions test whether you can look at a 2D representation and understand the 3D object it describes — and vice versa.
In practice, you might see a floor plan of a building and be asked which elevation corresponds to it, or an axonometric projection and be asked which view it represents. Some questions present four variations of a drawing and ask which correctly represents a given object. These questions require spatial reasoning skills that develop through practice, not memorisation.
Strategy: practice with real architectural drawings. Get a set of simple floor plans and try to sketch the corresponding elevations from memory. Then check your work. Do this daily for two weeks and the mental rotation becomes automatic. On test day, use elimination — if an option shows a door on the wrong wall or a window at the wrong height, it's wrong regardless of the rest of the drawing. Start with what you can rule out.
Section 5: Mathematics and Physics (10 questions, 20 minutes)
A compressed version of what TOLC-I spreads across two separate sections (Mathematics and Sciences). You get 10 questions covering both subjects in a single 20-minute block.
Mathematics topics: number sets and arithmetic, algebraic calculus, Euclidean geometry (polygons, circles, areas, volumes), analytic geometry fundamentals, probability and statistics fundamentals, trigonometry fundamentals.
Physics topics: mechanics (displacement, velocity, acceleration, mass, momentum, force, weight, work, power, law of inertia, Newton's law, action-reaction), statics, thermodynamics (temperature, heat, specific heat, thermal expansion), electrostatics (Coulomb's law, electric field and potential, capacitors, capacitors in series/parallel), electrodynamics (DC current, resistance, Ohm's law, resistors in series/parallel).
Unlike TOLC-I, where you get 50 minutes for 20 Math questions (2.5 min each), here you're solving Math and Physics together in 20 minutes — 2.0 min per question with no extra buffer.
Strategy: same batching approach as TOLC-I Sciences — scan all 10, answer your stronger subject first, then switch. Don't alternate between subjects question by question. If a calculation looks like it needs more than 2.5 minutes, skip it, finish everything else, then return. One point from a fast Physics recall question is worth the same as one point from a 4-minute algebra grind.
Scoring: same system, different stakes
The scoring formula matches TOLC-I and CEnT-S: +1 correct, -0.25 incorrect, 0 unanswered. Maximum 50 points.
The guessing math is identical: blind guess = 0 expected value, eliminate one option = +0.0625, eliminate two = +0.167. Never guess blindly; always guess when you can exclude at least one option.
But the stakes are different because of no portability. On TOLC-I, a mediocre score at one university can still be used at another. On ARCHED, your score is locked to one university. There's no second chance at a different institution unless cross-university transfers open up (which you can't count on). Every point matters more because you only get one shot per university.
The tie-break order: study priority in disguise
The Decreto Ministeriale's tie-break sequence is effectively a study priority ranking for marginal students:
- First: Logical Reasoning. Second: Reading Comprehension. Third: Drawing and Representation. Fourth: Mathematics and Physics. Fifth: Knowledge from Studies / History / Art History / General Culture. Final: youngest candidate wins.
PoliPrep's ARCHED cohort course includes 20 full simulation tests matching the real exam format — same 5 sections, same 100-minute timing, same scoring. The 14-week curriculum dedicates specific weeks to Drawing & Representation and History of Art, the sections most competitors skip. Join the waitlist at poliprep.com.
