Biology Teacher License Test Content: 7 Domains, 12 Standards and Weights

Last verified: 30 October 2026. Our sources are the candidate guide for the Teachers' Professional License test in Biology and the Biology teacher standards, both published by the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) (1441 AH / 2020 edition; the latest edition, and the guide is a trial edition). This guide is independent: it is not affiliated with ETEC, Qiyas (the National Center for Assessment), the Ministry of Education or any government body.

In short: the Biology test covers 12 standards in seven domains. The largest is life processes, immunity and disease at 21%, then structural and functional organisation and genetics at 15% each, and the rest between 11% and 13%. There is no Biology 1 and Biology 2; it is a single test.

One test for biology

ETEC publishes one guide and one set of standards for biology teachers, unlike science, maths and English, which each have two levels. The biology questions inside the Science 2 test are only a small part of it: 20% of that test, with five standards. Here biology is the whole test, with twelve standards. Among the differences, immunity and disease have a standard of their own here (6.8.7), and teaching biology and laboratory safety is a full domain at 11%.

Test format

The seven domains and their weights

These weights come from the figure and table on pages 6 and 7 of the candidate guide.

Each question measures one indicator, and the test does not have to cover every indicator.

The 12 standards one by one

Standard names follow the standards document (numbered 6.8.1 to 6.8.12), and the "What it measures" column is our own summary of their indicators.

History and Nature of Biology and Its Links to Other Sciences (13%)

Structural and Functional Organisation of Living Things (15%)

Classification of Living Things (12%)

Ecology and Biodiversity (13%)

Life Processes, Immunity and Disease (21%)

Genetics (15%)

Teaching Biology and Laboratory Safety (11%)

Question style in ETEC's guide

The guide shows ten sample questions with the reasoning behind each answer, then practice questions with an answer key and each question's standard and indicator. These show the style of the test:

• Direct concepts: "A guess that can be tested is a..." and the answer is a hypothesis. Similar ones ask that a family is a group of genera, the principles of cell theory, decomposers returning minerals to the environment, and mutualism in the gut bacteria that make vitamin K.
• Short reasoning: which cell has the most mitochondria? A muscle cell in a migratory bird's wing, because it needs a lot of energy.
• Reading a figure: concentric circles show how genetic information is arranged in the nucleus, and you pick the circle that stands for chromosomes.
• Few calculations: mostly in genetics, such as base pairing in DNA (AACTTG pairs with TTGAAC) and offspring probabilities, done on paper without a calculator.
• Safe behaviour in the lab: if a chemical is spilled on your skin, the first step is to rinse the area with plenty of water.

ETEC itself notes that the guide's examples do not cover every aspect of the test and do not reflect how easy or hard the real questions are.

How to use this table when you study

1. Start with the free questions to see which domains are weakest for you.
2. Order your time by weight: life processes and immunity first (21%), then structural organisation and genetics. The eight-week plan is built on these weights.
3. Do not neglect the smaller domains. The history of biology, classification, ecology, and teaching and lab safety together make up 49% of the questions.
4. Practise genetics problems with a Punnett square and without a calculator.

Your score on our questions is an estimate of readiness, not an official result. Each unit in unit practice is one of these seven domains, so if the free questions show a weakness in genetics or classification, you can practise that domain on its own.