Students' understanding of foundational concepts in fundamental courses is important as it is a pre-requirement for proceeding to any advanced and specific courses in any degree programme. Despite high passing rates in most universities, students actually do not really have a good understanding of the course content, especially in fundamental courses. This paper aims to discuss how the pre-test of basic knowledge in mathematics and physics learnt during pre-university or matriculation level can be used to determine and predict student achievement in the fundamental courses of the two subjects. The pre-test questions were distributed to the first-year students at the beginning of semester one (1) of their study at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia. In this study, two fundamental courses were selected from first- and second-year programmes, namely, Static & Dynamic (KH 1044) and Fluid Mechanics (KH 2134), respectively. A total of 35 students from the test sample of 43 students successfully obtained the pre-test scores of over 40%, while only one student scored more than 80%. However, students who did well in the pre-test did not necessarily obtain good results in the final examination of both fundamental courses and vice versa. Therefore, necessary action or improvement to the teaching and learning process of the identified courses need to be taken to ensure that students have deep understanding of the subjects before they proceed to the advanced courses.