As a part of the two-year process of revising the basic mathematics course at the Open University (Britain), an in-depth survey of students completing the first unit of the course was conducted. A sample of 120 students was divided into three groups of 40; group members received a questionnaire concerning concepts covered, a questionnaire about sections of the unit, or a test on the material. Approximately half of the students in each group returned the questionnaires. The concept questionnaire asked students to rate their prior familiarity, effort needed to understand, and current understanding of each concept identified in a conceptual analysis of the unit. These ratings were submitted to a multivariate analysis of variance. The sections of the unit were rated, and data analyzed similarly. Several relationships were uncovered: difficulty of concepts was predicted by amount of effort, and the time needed per section of a unit was related to level of concepts, number of diagrams, and number of lines in the text. The rating instruments and summaries of responses are included. (SD)