General Educational Test Content: 3 Domains, 9 Standards and Their Weights

Last verified: 18 October 2026. Test details can change, so check the Teachers' Professional License page on the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) website and the applicant guide for the General Educational Test before you start studying. This is an independent study guide and is not affiliated with ETEC, Qiyas (the National Center for Assessment) or any government body.

The Teachers' Professional License is made up of two tests: the General Educational Test, which is the same for every teacher whatever their subject, and the subject-specific test in your own field. This guide covers the General Educational Test only. It measures the general educational standards set out in ETEC's General Educational Standards document, and the test guide states that it measures the Practitioner Teacher indicators.

How many sections does the General Educational Test have? Three sections (domains): Values and Professional Responsibilities 21%, Professional Knowledge 40% and Professional Practice 39%. Together they hold nine standards measured in 88 questions, according to the applicant guide for the General Educational Test. Each domain and standard is covered in detail below.

Test format at a glance

That gives you about 80 seconds per question. Because wrong answers cost nothing, never leave a question blank.

The three domains and their weights

The general educational standards contain ten standards in three domains, and the General Educational Test measures nine of them:

The nine standards and their weights

The heaviest standard is 4 (Language and Quantitative Skills) at 17%, followed by 5 (Knowing Learners) and 8 (Planning and Delivering Instruction) at 15% each. These three alone account for 41 questions, close to half the test.

Standard 6 is not in this test

Standard 6 in the standards document covers knowledge of your subject's content and how to teach it, so it is measured by the subject-specific test, not the General Educational Test. That is why the standard numbers in this guide jump from 5 to 7.

The thirty sub-standards

Each standard is split into sub-standards, and each sub-standard has performance indicators.

The names above are our short English renderings of the Arabic standards document; read the document itself for the full indicators.

Values and Professional Responsibilities (21%, 18 questions)

Standard 1: Islamic Values, Professional Ethics and National Identity (8%, 7 questions)

It tests your commitment to moderate Islamic values in your own conduct and in activities that build moderation, tolerance, dialogue and respect for other views; strengthening national identity and pride in heritage while staying open to other cultures; and following the teaching profession's code of ethics and Saudi education policies and regulations, with relationships built on knowing rights and duties. Most questions are classroom scenarios: what would a role-model teacher do?

Standard 2: Continuous Professional Development (5%, 4 questions)

It tests how you manage your own development: identifying needs from self-reflection and from colleague and expert evaluations, setting goals against the Practitioner Teacher indicators, writing a workable plan and carrying it out, lifelong learning, and critically analysing your practice in the light of your students' results.

Standard 3: Professional Interaction with Educators and the Community (8%, 7 questions)

It tests your work with professional learning communities and positive relations with colleagues, action research and applying its recommendations, and taking up colleagues' and supervisors' initiatives; communicating with parents, including its aims, reports and barriers; and the school's link with the local community, bringing local issues into lessons and running activities outside school.

Professional Knowledge (40%, 35 questions)

Standard 4: Language and Quantitative Skills (17%, 15 questions)

The largest standard in the test, in two parts. Language: reading and listening comprehension (fact versus opinion, main and implied ideas, text structure), correct grammar, spelling and punctuation, writing reports and meeting minutes, and speaking and reading aloud. Quantitative: whole-number operations and estimation, percentages, ratio and proportion, prime factors, common factors and multiples, converting metric units of length, mass and capacity, perimeter, area and volume, designing questionnaires, reading and choosing charts, and measures of central tendency and range. All without a calculator.

Standard 5: Knowing Learners and How They Learn (15%, 13 questions)

It tests your knowledge of development at each age stage and its effect on learning, developmental problems and everyday stress, and signs of emotional disorders, abuse and neglect; individual differences (social, economic and cultural background, mental and physical traits, prior knowledge and meaningful learning); learning theories, learning styles, how learners build meaning and thinking skills, and the effect of attitudes and values; and the traits of learners with disabilities, gifted learners and learners with learning difficulties, and the procedures for supporting them.

Standard 7: General Teaching Methods (8%, 7 questions)

It tests the general teaching approaches (behavioural, cognitive, humanistic and social) and their theory; direct methods (lecture, discussion, induction and deduction, demonstration), interactive methods (cooperative learning, role play, peer teaching), self-learning methods (programmed instruction, learning modules, computer-assisted learning), constructivist methods (the learning cycle, problem-centred learning) and motivating methods in e-learning. Telling the four approaches apart is a common trap.

Professional Practice (39%, 35 questions)

Standard 8: Planning and Delivering Instruction (15%, 13 questions)

It tests lesson planning that links objectives to curriculum standards, uses assessment data and students' interests and experience, and picks digital and non-digital resources; designing activities that meet the objectives, suit the students and connect with other subjects; varying strategies to fit the objectives and the learners, asking thought-provoking questions, inclusive education and differentiated instruction; and developing the curriculum's cross-cutting dimensions such as responsible citizenship, sustainability, values, problem solving and self-reliance.

Standard 9: Interactive and Supportive Learning Environments (11%, 10 questions)

It tests setting high expectations and supporting independent learning; leading classroom activities (rules agreed with students in line with the Ministry's behaviour and attendance rules, keeping order, handling misbehaviour with educational methods, managing time and transitions); creating a safe, attractive environment (room layout, resources every student can use, relationships of trust and respect, digital citizenship rules); and building a culture of communication (managing discussion, questioning skills, digital collaboration tools).

Standard 10: Assessment (13%, 12 questions)

It tests planning assessment (deriving and classifying objectives from curriculum standards, the assessment plan, paper and electronic tools, item-writing rules and performance criteria); carrying it out (formal and informal assessment, assessment of and for learning, validity and reliability, difficulty and discrimination indices, diagnostic, formative and summative assessment, objective marking, accommodations for students with special needs, and norm- and criterion-referenced interpretation such as percentile ranks and standard scores); and using the results (grade records and their analysis, feedback to students and parents, grade reports, and adjusting teaching from the data).

What does "Practitioner Teacher indicators" mean?

The standards document lists performance indicators for each sub-standard by professional rank, and the General Educational Test guide states that the questions are built on the Practitioner Teacher indicators. In practice:

• There is one test for everyone. There is no separate test for the Advanced or Expert level; your level is set by your score together with your qualification and years of experience, as explained in the "Who needs this test" guide.
• Questions ask what a working classroom teacher does: recognise, apply and choose the best action for a given situation, rather than recite abstract definitions.
• Many questions are a short classroom or school scenario followed by a question about the "most appropriate" action. Several options may be reasonable on their own, so pick the one that best serves the goal stated in the question.

Study tips

• Start with the applicant guide for the General Educational Test: it describes the content and weights and includes 10 worked examples with explanations and 23 practice questions with an answer key. The guide is a trial edition from 1441 AH (2020) and is still the version posted on ETEC's website.
• Read the Practitioner Teacher indicators under each sub-standard in the General Educational Standards; the questions are built on them.
• Spend your time by weight: standards 4, 5 and 8 first, then 10 and 9. Do not skip the smaller ones; standards 1, 2, 3 and 7 together are 25 questions.
• Practise the quantitative part without a calculator: percentages, proportion, mean, median, mode, range and unit conversion.
• Learn to separate concepts that look alike, because the wrong options are built on them: behavioural, cognitive, humanistic and social approaches; diagnostic, formative and summative assessment; validity and reliability; norm- and criterion-referenced interpretation.
• In the last week, sit full 88-question tests in two hours, ideally on paper, since the real test is paper-based.