Algebra and calculus students have difficulties to express themselves in a statement of mathematical symbols and to comment on written mathematical statements to end with equivalent mathematical symbols statement. In this study, the reasons behind the meaning students load to the mathematical symbols and written mathematical statements was investigated. Moreover the relation between students' understanding of algebra/calculus and written/mathematical symbol statements were also examined. This study is conducted with descriptive and exploratory purposes to the enquiry. Because of the nature of the data, this research uses qualitative data collection tools which are written examination to students, interviews with students and lecturers and classroom observations. Concurrent verbal protocols were also conducted by students to gain insight into their thinking. Results showed that teaching for testing, which seems to be one of the reasons for Skemp's instrumental understanding, before the university have influences on students' performance on dealing with mathematical symbols at algebra and calculus. It is found that students mostly take symbols as object with some meaning rather than thinking of process object duality.