Nearly 100 students were given a Pre-Test in psychology on the first day of class without warning in order to assess their knowledge of basic course content derived from the prerequisites of the course (PSYC-100 Introduction to Psychology or PSYC-220 Child Development) and other life experiences. This was intended as a low-stakes testing situation, since students were assured that the results were to be used only for curricular/instructional decision making and the results would have no impact upon the student's grade in the course. The Pre-Test was found to explain 12% of the variance in final course grade average. This research report contains an item analysis of the Pre-Test depicting the extent of psychological knowledge students brought with them to the class. The achievement results were very disappointing. For example, only 2 students knew the names and proper order of Piaget's 4 stages of cognitive development. The author hypothesized that even some fundamental psychological knowledge that was retained from previous learning allowed students to more effectively and efficiently re-learn such content for the new target course. This pedagogical research supported the use of the existing pre-requisite for the course, but extreme caution is urged when instructors assume that a substantial and accurate knowledge base in psychology is brought to the learning context based upon satisfying the pre-requisite course requirement. (Contains 3 tables.)