Evaluación del entendimiento gráfico de derivada e integral definida mediante un examen en castellano de opción múltiple

The paper presents a multiple-choice exam that evaluates the graphic interpretation of the concept of derivative as slope and of the concept of definite integral as area under the curve. It also shows that the exam is a reliable evaluation instrument, and a quantitative analysis of the students' understanding of the concepts evaluated in the exam is done. The instrument consists of 16 multiple-choice questions, written in Spanish and it comes from a previously validated English version for kinematics. The exam was applied to 140 freshman engineering students at a Mexican university. The exam complies with the reliability statistical tests and has discriminatory power. It was observed that the participants have serious difficulties in the graphical understanding of the concepts. It is concluded that the various analyzes carried out, the given recommendations and the exam can be used with confidence by professors and researchers of engineering and sciences in Spanish-speaking countries.