In addition to using pretests to get an idea of where students are at on week 1 of a new class, I have also used pretests to aid in the curriculum flow of classes in a series. For example, at the college I teach at we have a series of classes: Digital Audio Specs, Intro to Audio, Digital Audio Workstations I & II. The four classes are taken in that order, and deal with a continuous flow of related material. There was a curriculum flow issue from course to course, where students felt bored in some classes because they already new a big chunk of the material, and other classes where the students felt that the material was way over their head. Each of us developed a week 1 pretest to assess each student's strengths and weaknesses; and the strengths and weaknesses of the class as a whole. Not only did this help us to choose review material wisely, it also set a clearly defined end goal for each class in the series.