Early Grades Teacher License Test Content: 6 Domains, 26 Standards and Weights
Content of the Early Grades teacher license test: the six domains and weights (Arabic 25%, science 20%), all 26 standards and ETEC's question style.
- Questions and time
- 88 questions · 120 minutes
- Pass mark
- 50%
- Exam fee
- SAR 100 for the subject test
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Teacher License – Early Grades
Start with 10 free questions to find what needs more work. No sign-up, with answer explanations.
Try 10 free questions and see your levelLast verified: 31 October 2026. Our sources are the candidate guide to the Professional License test for early-grades teachers and the standards for early-grades teachers, both issued by the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) (the 1441 AH / 2020 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 Early Grades test measures 26 standards in six domains, with 139 indicators under them. The largest is Arabic at 25%, then science at 20%, then Islamic studies and mathematics at 16% each. Those four subject domains make up 77% of the questions. Growth characteristics are 12%, and the healthy classroom environment and teaching methods are 11%.
One paper, six subjects
This is the Professional License test for early-grades teachers (الصفوف الأولية), that is grades one to three of primary school, and ETEC publishes a separate guide and standards for it. It is a single paper that combines six subjects: growth, Islamic studies, Arabic, mathematics, science, and teaching methods with safety. It measures your own knowledge of the subjects, not grade-one textbook level: Arabic covers grammar, case endings and spelling, science covers cells, atoms and electric fields, and mathematics covers ratio, proportion and statistics.
The license needs two tests: this subject test and the General Educational Test. Your level uses the lower of the two scores.
How it differs from the nearby tests
| Test | Who takes it | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Early Grades (this page) | Teachers of grades one to three of primary school | Six subjects in one paper: 26 standards, Arabic 25% and science 20% |
| Arabic Language 1 | Primary-school Arabic teachers | One subject: 6 domains and 17 standards, grammar and morphology 32% |
| Mathematics 1 | Primary-school mathematics teachers | One subject: geometry and measurement together 32% |
| Science 1 | Primary-school science teachers | One subject, a separate test with its own standards and weights |
| Kindergarten | Kindergarten teachers | 8 domains and 20 standards, development and learning 26% |
In practice, an early-grades teacher does not sit Arabic 1. According to the Ministry of Education's guide to specialisations for teaching posts (2025, p. 8), their license is in the "Early Grades" specialisation. This test puts Arabic, mathematics and science in one paper, each with its own share and standards written for the early grades. So choose the test for your own specialisation on the e-services portal.
Test format
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Questions | 88 questions |
| Question type | Multiple choice with four options; each question measures one indicator of one standard |
| Time | 120 minutes (two hours) |
| Delivery | Paper or computer depending on the specialisation; your profile shows which |
| Language | Arabic |
| Calculator | Not allowed |
| Scoring | Criterion-referenced, with no deduction for wrong answers |
| Level scores | 50 for Practitioner, 70 for Advanced, 80 and above for Expert (License Regulations, clause 4) |
The six domains and their weights
The weights come from figure 1 and the table on pages 6 and 7 of the candidate guide. The question counts are the 88 questions split by those weights.
| Domain | Official weight | Standards | Questions out of 88 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth Characteristics | 12% | 3 | 10 |
| Islamic Studies | 16% | 4 | 14 |
| Arabic Language | 25% | 8 | 22 |
| Mathematics | 16% | 4 | 14 |
| Science | 20% | 5 | 18 |
| Healthy Classroom Environment and Teaching Methods | 11% | 2 | 10 |
| Total | 100% | 26 | 88 |
Each question measures one indicator, and the test need not cover every indicator.
The 26 standards, one by one
The standard names are as in the standards document (numbered 6.28.1 to 6.28.26), and the "What it measures" column is our summary of their indicators. The guide publishes the weight of each domain and does not divide it among the standards, so we divide each domain's weight among its standards by their number of indicators and spread practice on that basis. That is the "Share of practice" column. The shares of a domain's standards add up to the domain's weight.
Growth Characteristics (12%)
| Standard | Name | Indicators | Share of practice | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.28.1 | Developmental characteristics from before birth to middle childhood | 8 | 5% | main development theories, the developmental needs of early-grade pupils, the factors that affect them, cognitive, motor, social, emotional and language development, and tracking pupils' growth by observation |
| 6.28.2 | Promoting the different areas of growth in early-grade students | 6 | 4% | experiences and activities that support physical, cognitive, social and language growth, alternative ways to communicate for a pupil who struggles to speak, and building a love of reading |
| 6.28.3 | Accounting for individual differences in the early grades | 4 | 3% | individual differences in development, their effect and how to respond, telling typical from atypical development, and designing a lesson that allows for them |
Islamic Studies (16%)
| Standard | Name | Indicators | Share of practice | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.28.4 | Revering the Quran, reciting it correctly and teaching tajweed | 8 | 5% | reciting the Quran without clear or hidden errors, memorising Juz' 'Amma and Tabarak, the rules of noon sakinah, tanween, meem sakinah and the madds, ta'awwudh and basmalah, correcting pupils' recitation, and Quranic stories and lessons |
| 6.28.5 | Creed according to Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah | 6 | 3% | creed terminology, the articles of faith and their evidence, tawhid and its types, and simplifying abstract concepts to a pupil's level |
| 6.28.6 | Key rulings of worship and training students to perform them | 10 | 5% | purification, wudu and hadath, tayammum and wiping over socks, types of impurity, the conditions, pillars, obligations, sunnahs, invalidators and disliked acts of prayer, Friday and Eid prayers, and training pupils in purification and prayer |
| 6.28.7 | Key rulings on food and clothing | 6 | 3% | lawful and forbidden foods, the 'awrah and its limits, the hijab, rules and etiquette of clothing, imitation of others' dress, and nurturing modesty in pupils |
Arabic Language (25%)
| Standard | Name | Indicators | Share of practice | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.28.8 | Parts of speech, declinable/indeclinable, definite/indefinite | 5 | 3% | the parts of speech (noun, verb, particle) and their signs, declinable and indeclinable words, primary and substitute case markers, and definite and indefinite nouns |
| 6.28.9 | Nominative nouns and what makes them nominative | 5 | 3% | nominative nouns and what governs them, the doer and the deputy doer, forming the passive, nouns that are nominative by following another word, and nouns with a substitute marker such as the five nouns |
| 6.28.10 | Accusative nouns and their governing words | 7 | 4% | accusative nouns and their governors, the direct object, the exception and its particles, the circumstantial accusative (hal), the specifier (tamyiz), nouns that are accusative by following, and substitute markers |
| 6.28.11 | Genitive nouns and their governing words | 5 | 3% | genitive nouns and their governors, the idafa construction and its effects (such as dropping the nun of the dual and the sound masculine plural), nouns that are genitive by following, and substitute markers |
| 6.28.12 | The present-tense verb and its case markers | 3 | 2% | the nominative present-tense verb and its visible or implied marker, the subjunctive particles and markers, and the jussive particles and markers |
| 6.28.13 | Exclamation, comparative, numbers, vocative, praise and blame | 5 | 3% | forming exclamation and the comparative, numbers (composition, case, specifier, gender) and reading numerals correctly, the vocative, and praise and blame constructions |
| 6.28.14 | Spelling rules and punctuation | 8 | 5% | types of dictation (copied, seen, test), writing the hamzah, sun and moon letters with al-, open and closed ta, letters added or dropped in writing, the final alif, joining and separating words, and punctuation |
| 6.28.15 | Reading concepts, reading skills and text analysis | 3 | 2% | kinds of reading, analysing and critiquing the ideas read, and telling the general idea from the particular ones |
Mathematics (16%)
| Standard | Name | Indicators | Share of practice | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.28.16 | Numbers and operations | 5 | 5% | natural, whole and integer sets, fractions, ratio and proportion and their problems, the four operations and comparison, patterns, and word problems |
| 6.28.17 | Geometry concepts | 4 | 4% | kinds of lines, angles and triangles, properties of quadrilaterals, and perimeter and area problems |
| 6.28.18 | Measurement, units and applications | 4 | 3% | units of measurement (angle, length, perimeter, area, volume, temperature, time), conversion within one system, scale problems using proportion, and measurement word problems |
| 6.28.19 | Statistics and probability | 5 | 4% | collecting, representing and analysing data, the mean and measures of spread, the link between data and how it is displayed, expected value in simple cases, and statistics and probability problems |
Science (20%)
| Standard | Name | Indicators | Share of practice | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.28.20 | Characteristics and structure of living things | 5 | 5% | the distinguishing features of living things, the cell, protoplasm and tissues, cell theory and comparing cell types, body tissues and their functions, and the levels of organisation in an organism |
| 6.28.21 | Ecology, ecosystems and environmental problems | 4 | 4% | ecology concepts, ecosystems and their parts, relationships between organisms, natural cycles, and types of pollution and how to treat them |
| 6.28.22 | Earth's structure, spheres and processes | 3 | 3% | internal processes (earthquakes and volcanoes) and how their distribution relates to plate boundaries, external processes (weathering, erosion, transport, deposition), and minerals and their properties |
| 6.28.23 | Matter, solutions, acids and bases | 4 | 4% | the nature, composition, states and changes of matter, atomic structure and the molecule, solutions and concentration, and acids and bases and how they are tested |
| 6.28.24 | Key physics concepts | 5 | 4% | electric force between charges, force and electric field strength, the magnetic field and its link to current, heat and temperature and how heat travels, and the properties, speed and propagation of light |
Healthy Classroom Environment and Teaching Methods (11%)
| Standard | Name | Indicators | Share of practice | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.28.25 | Teaching methods and effective learning experiences for the early grades | 4 | 6% | writing varied objectives suited to the early grades, choosing learning techniques that draw pupils in, picking suitable educational games, and choosing teaching strategies (induction, simulation, inquiry, demonstration, discovery learning, differentiated teaching) |
| 6.28.26 | Promoting the safety and health of early-grade learners | 7 | 5% | a physically and psychologically safe setting, using tools and equipment safely for the pupils' age, recognising signs of abuse and neglect, the rules that protect children's rights and care, and the value of healthy eating and the problems poor eating causes |
The question style in ETEC's guide
The guide shows ten sample questions with the reasoning for the answer, then 25 practice questions with an answer key. The ten samples are three from mathematics, three from science, three from Arabic and one from Islamic studies. From them and the practice questions you can see the style of the test:
- Mathematics without a calculator: a workers-and-days problem solved by inverse proportion, the area of a square built on the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle, comparing the fuel two cars use over a set distance, a map scale, converting a speed from one unit to another, a mean where you work out the score needed on the last test, and the perimeter of a rectangle from its area and the ratio of its sides.
- Science: which animal has a diaphragm (a mammal trait), what plant and animal cells share, what joins muscle to bone, the effect of removing part of the small intestine on absorption, the main cause of earthquakes, the name for a gas turning into a liquid, locating a part in an atom diagram, where milk falls among mixtures, what litmus paper does with an acid, and the link between temperature and the kinetic energy of molecules.
- Arabic: a nominative noun with a substitute marker (the five nouns), telling the circumstantial accusative from the specifier, the dual losing its nun in an idafa, the implied marker on a defective present-tense verb, picking out the verb in a sentence, reading a numeral in words with the right gender and case, and writing the final alif of a verb according to its origin (waw or ya).
- Islamic studies: the length of the natural madd, a tajweed rule in a short verse, the levels of qadar, which wudu mistake invalidates it, who has priority to lead prayer, and the meaning of fiqh terms in the description of wudu.
- Growth: features of language development in early childhood, and where Piaget's concrete-operational stage begins.
The guide shows no sample for the teaching-methods and safety domain, but it is 11% of the test and covers standards 6.28.25 and 6.28.26 with their four and seven indicators. Overall the questions test your knowledge of the subject itself, so memorising definitions is not enough: you have to calculate, parse and explain. ETEC itself notes that the guide's examples do not cover every aspect of the test and do not show the difficulty of the real questions.
How to use this table when you study
- Start with the free questions (10 of them) to see which subjects are weakest for you.
- Order your time by weight: Arabic first (22 questions), then science (18), then Islamic studies and mathematics (14 each). The study plan is built on these weights.
- Do not neglect the two smaller domains. Growth characteristics and the healthy classroom environment with teaching methods make up 23% of the questions together, which is 20 of the 88.
- Arabic has eight standards: six on grammar and case endings (6.28.8 to 6.28.13), one on spelling and punctuation (6.28.14) and one on reading (6.28.15). Spelling has the most indicators in the subject (8), and the present-tense verb and reading have the fewest (3 each).
- The standards with the most indicators: worship rulings (6.28.6) with ten, then five with eight or seven: developmental characteristics (6.28.1), reciting the Quran (6.28.4), spelling (6.28.14), accusative nouns (6.28.10) and learner safety and health (6.28.26). The highest share in our split goes to teaching methods for the early grades (6.28.25) at 6%, followed by seven standards at 5%: 6.28.1, 6.28.4, 6.28.6, 6.28.14, 6.28.16, 6.28.20 and 6.28.26.
Your score on our questions is an estimate of your readiness and not an official result. Each unit in unit practice is one of these six domains, so if the free questions show weakness in science or mathematics, say, practise that domain on its own.
Finished reading? Try a set of questions
Start with 10 free questions to find your weakest units. Keep practising with the full question bank and mock exams from SAR 26.
Sources and references
- ETEC – Professional License Test for Educational Professions (dates, scoring, FAQ and e-services) etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Candidate guide for Early Grades teachers (domains, weights and sample questions) media.etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Subject standards for Early Grades teachers (1441 AH / 2020) media.etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Professional License Regulations for Educational Jobs (1445 AH revision) media.etec.gov.sa