Teacher License – General Complete Review Guide 2026–2027

4. Hamzat al-wasl is pronounced only at the start of speech and drops in connected speech. It occurs in the past, imperative and verbal noun of five- and six-letter verbs (intasara, intisar, istakhraja, istikhraj), the imperative of three-letter verbs (uktub), certain nouns such as ibn, ibna, ism, ithnan, ithnatan, imru', imra'a, and the definite article al-. Hamzat al-qat' is always pronounced: in the three-letter past verb and its verbal noun (akhadha, akhdh), the four-letter verb's past, imperative and verbal noun (akrama, akrim, ikram), the present verb with the first-person hamza (aktubu), all other nouns (Ahmad, ab) and all particles except al- (inna, ila).
5. Final soft alif: in three-letter words, go back to the root letter. If it is waw, write a standing alif (da'a/yad'u, 'asa/'asawan); if it is ya', write alif maqsura (hada/yahdi, fata/fatayan). In words longer than three letters write alif maqsura (a'ta, mustashfa) unless a ya' comes before it, then write a standing alif (ahya, dunya). Ta' marbuta is pronounced as ha' when you pause (madrasa, qudat); ta' maftuha stays ta' when you pause and appears in verbs (katabat), sound feminine plurals (mu'allimat) and nouns whose ta' is part of the root (bayt, sawt).
6. Numbers and the counted noun: 1 and 2 agree with the noun and follow it (kitab wahid, qissatan ithnatan); 3 to 10 take the opposite gender of the singular noun, which comes as a genitive plural (thalathat kutub, thalath qisas); 11 and 12 agree in both parts (ahada 'ashara kitaban, ihda 'ashrata qissa); 13 to 19 contrast in the first part and agree in the second part 'ashar, with a singular accusative noun (tis' 'ashrata ja'iza, thalathata 'ashara taliban); the tens do not change and take a singular accusative noun ('ishrun kitaban); 100 and 1000 do not change and take a singular genitive noun (mi'at kitab).
7. Punctuation: the full stop (.) ends a sentence with complete meaning; the comma (،) separates short related clauses and listed parts and follows a vocative (ya Muhammad, aqbil); the semicolon (؛) separates two sentences where the second gives the reason for the first (the student passed; because he worked hard); the colon (:) follows reported speech verbs and comes before details or lists (the two black things are: dates and water); the question mark (؟) follows a question; the exclamation mark (!) follows exclamation and emotion (how lovely the weather is!); quotation marks «» enclose quoted words.
8. Writing a text on a set idea: an introduction that states the idea, a body of paragraphs each with one idea supported by evidence (a Qur'anic verse, a hadith, a statistic, a real example), and a conclusion that sums up and draws the result. Link ideas with suitable connectors: lakinna for contrast, li'anna for cause, lidhalika for result, kullama for 'the more... the more'.
9. Functional writing serves a practical purpose in objective, concise, clear language; its types include the report, minutes, official letter, circular, announcement and CV. A report's structure: title, introduction (purpose), body (procedures and results with figures and facts), conclusion (recommendations), then name, signature and date. Meeting minutes: number and title, date, time and place, attendees and absentees, agenda, summary of discussion, decisions and recommendations with who carries them out and by when, and attendees' signatures.
10. Oral reading has vocal skills: articulating each letter correctly, correct grammatical vowelling, pausing where the meaning is complete, and varying the voice to match the meaning. Silent reading is faster and focuses on comprehension without voice or lip movement; it is the most used in daily life and includes speed reading (skimming and scanning) to find specific information. In speaking, verbal and non-verbal expression work together: eye contact, facial expressions, gestures that match the words, posture and tone of voice.
11. Order of operations: brackets, then multiplication and division in the order they appear, then addition and subtraction: 3 × (4 + 12) ÷ 6 = 3 × 16 ÷ 6 = 8. Mental tricks: × 5 = × 10 then ÷ 2 (35 × 5 = 175); × 25 = × 100 then ÷ 4 (48 × 25 = 1200). For days of the week, divide by 7 and use the remainder: 30 days after a Monday, 30 = 4 × 7 + 2, so it is a Wednesday. Distance = speed × time: a quarter of an hour at 80 km/h is 20 km.
12. Percentages: part = whole × rate; rate = part ÷ whole × 100 (12 students out of 80 = 15%); whole = part ÷ rate (240 students are 30%, so the whole is 800). For 10%, move the decimal point one place (10% of 350 = 35). Price after a d% discount = original × (100 − d) ÷ 100: a 1200-riyal phone at 25% off costs 900 riyals.
13. Sharing in a ratio: to split 24 students in the ratio 1 : 2 : 5, add the parts (8), then 24 ÷ 8 = 3, giving groups of 3, 6 and 15. Direct proportion by cross-multiplying: 9 riyals every 15 days means 45 riyals takes 75 days. Inverse proportion: if 3 students finish a job in 6 days, finishing it in 1 day needs 3 × 6 = 18 students. A rate is an amount per unit: a printer printing 40 pages a minute prints 280 pages in 7 minutes.
14. A prime number has exactly two factors, 1 and itself; 1 is not prime, 2 is the only even prime, and the primes below 30 are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29. Prime factorisation: 36 = 2² × 3² and 27 = 3³. The GCD multiplies the common factors with the lowest powers (GCD(36, 27) = 9); the LCM multiplies all factors with the highest powers (LCM(36, 27) = 2² × 3³ = 108). Check: GCD × LCM = product of the two numbers (9 × 108 = 972 = 36 × 27).
15. Metric units: length 1 km = 1000 m, 1 m = 100 cm, 1 cm = 10 mm; mass 1 kg = 1000 g, 1 tonne = 1000 kg; capacity 1 L = 1000 mL (40 L = 40,000 mL). Multiply to convert to a smaller unit and divide to convert to a larger one. A map scale of 1 : 25,000 means 1 cm on the map is 25,000 cm on the ground, so 32 cm = 800,000 cm = 8 km.
16. Shape formulas: rectangle perimeter = 2 × (length + width), area = length × width (a 12 m × 8 m field has a perimeter of 40 m); square perimeter = 4 × side, area = side² (an area of 225 m² has a 15 m side and a 60 m fence); triangle area = ½ × base × height (area 6 cm² and base 4 cm give a height of 3 cm); cuboid volume = length × width × height (5 × 4 × 3 = 60 m³); cube volume = edge³ (a volume of 27 m³ has a 3 m edge).
17. Questionnaire design criteria: a clear, specific purpose; short, clear items each covering one idea; no leading items or double negatives; a suitable response scale (such as a Likert scale); clear instructions. Scientific control: validity (it measures what it was designed to measure, e.g. by expert review), reliability (consistent results on re-administration or by Cronbach's alpha), and a pilot on a small sample before full use.
18. Choosing a graph: a line graph shows change over time and helps predict a trend (average scores over 10 years); a bar graph compares categories or qualitative data (number of students in each grade); a dot plot (a dot above a number line for each value) suits a small data set and shows how often each value occurs, clusters, gaps and outliers. To read any graph, check the title, both axes and the scale before drawing conclusions.
19. Central tendency and range for 4, 7, 7, 9, 13: mean = sum ÷ count = 40 ÷ 5 = 8; median = the middle value after ordering = 7; mode = the most frequent value = 7; range = largest − smallest = 13 − 4 = 9. With an even number of values the median is the average of the two middle values: the median of 5, 8, 10, 12 is (8 + 10) ÷ 2 = 9.
20. Comparing two data sets: compare their level with the mean or median and their spread with the range; the set with the smaller range has values closer together. When there is an extreme value (e.g. 12, 13, 18, 2500), the median represents the data better than the mean. Adding 3 to every value in 4, 7, 7, 9, 13 makes the mean 11 and the median 10, while the range stays 9.

Common mistakes in this chapter

• ✕ The hamza in ibn, ism, intafa'a, intifa' and istikhraj is hamzat al-wasl, while the hamza of a three-letter past verb and its verbal noun (akhadha, akhdh) and of a four-letter verb and its verbal noun (akrama, ikram) is hamzat al-qat'. Judge by the word type and the letter count of its verb, not by how the word looks.
• ✕ Numbers 3 to 10 take the opposite gender of the counted noun, and what counts is the singular, not the plural: thalathat kutub because kitab is masculine, and thalath qisas because qissa is feminine. A common error is khamsata 'ashara qissa; the correct form is khams 'ashrata qissa (15 stories).
• ✕ The final alif of a three-letter verb is written according to its root: da'a with a standing alif because its present is yad'u, and hada with alif maqsura because its present is yahdi. Pronunciation is the same in both, so it cannot decide the spelling.
• ✕ In main-idea questions three wrong options recur: a detail from a single sentence, an idea broader than the text, or an idea the text does not state or contradicts. The right answer covers the whole text and could serve as its title.
• ✕ Reversing a percentage: if a price is 75 riyals after a 25% discount, the original is 75 ÷ 0.75 = 100 riyals, not 75 plus 25% of 75, because the discount was taken from the original price, not from the discounted one.
• ✕ Mixing up perimeter and area: a fence or walking around a field is perimeter, while painting, tiling or covering a wall is area. When converting area, remember 1 m² = 10,000 cm², not 100 cm².
• ✕ The mean is affected by extreme values and the median is not. Adding the same number to every value raises the mean, median and mode by that amount but does not change the range.
• ✕ Validity is not reliability: a questionnaire is valid if it measures what it was designed to measure, and reliable if it gives similar results when given again to the same people under similar conditions.