How to Prepare for the Geography Teacher License Test: An 8-Week Plan by Domain Weight

Last verified: 31 October 2026. The weights come from the candidate guide for Geography teachers (pp. 6-7), and the standards from the Geography teacher standards document. 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: an eight-week plan that splits your time across the six domains by weight: three weeks of physical geography (21%) at the start, two weeks of human geography (22%), one week of regional geography (20%), one week of skills and teaching (23%) with your first full mock, and a final week of review and mock exams. Cartography and GIS (10%) fit into week 5, and geographic theory (4%) into week 1. The next sitting is expected in late January 2027, so adjust the plan to finish before your date (dates).

How we divide the time

Physical geography gets three weeks because it has six standards, and human geography gets two because it has five. Teaching questions are spread across every week because their domain is the largest. If a domain is already strong from your daily teaching, shorten its time and add it to your weakest domain after the week-one diagnosis.

Rules for every week

• Calculations without a calculator: the test does not allow one. From the start, practise on paper converting map scales (5 cm on a 1:100,000 map is 5 km), working out local time (one hour per 15 degrees of longitude) and population doubling time (70 divided by the growth rate).
• Read the standard, then practise: each standard has indicators in what the test covers, and each question measures one indicator. Start each topic with its indicators, then answer its questions in practice mode.
• Read the explanation of every option: a wrong option shows you the common misconception, so write down what you got wrong.
• The teaching session: skills and teaching methods is the largest domain (23%) and its questions need practice more than memorising, so give it thirty minutes every week on teaching-strategy questions (standard 6.12.20).
• Review your mistakes: redo last week's wrong answers every Sunday.
• End of every week: practise the week's topics, then take a full timed mock exam from week 7.

Week 1: Diagnosis, geographic theory and astronomy

• Day one: the free questions (20) to see where you stand in every domain.
• 6.12.1: the meaning and aims of geography, its development across civilisations, Muslim contributions, its branches and links to other fields. Learn its key figures (Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, al-Idrisi, Ibn Battuta, Yaqut, Humboldt, Ritter) and tell determinism from possibilism.
• 6.12.2: the universe and the solar system, the Earth's rotation and revolution and the seasons, lines of longitude and latitude and their link to time and climate, and calculating local time.
• End of the week: practise these two topics, and note your three weakest standards from the diagnosis.

Week 2: Physical geography (1)

• 6.12.3: landforms: plate tectonics and continental drift, internal processes (folding, faulting, volcanoes, earthquakes) and external ones (weathering and erosion by wind, water, ice and waves), and the features they make, such as deltas, dunes and fjords.
• 6.12.4: climate: the layers of the atmosphere, weather and climate elements, pressure belts and winds, observation instruments, the Koppen classification, air pollution and climate change, and international efforts.
• Watch for reasoning questions like the guide's example: how plate tectonics explains where the great mountain ranges lie.
• End of the week: practise both topics.

Week 3: Physical geography (2)

• 6.12.5: biogeography: the major biomes (rainforest, savanna, desert, Mediterranean, tundra) and what controls their distribution, environmental degradation and desertification.
• 6.12.6: water: the water cycle and its distribution, groundwater and aquifer types (confined and unconfined), and the importance, scarcity and protection of water.
• 6.12.7: seas and oceans: salinity and temperature, warm and cold currents, tides and the moon, seafloor relief, and the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf and protecting their environment.
• End of the week: practise the whole domain (6.12.2 to 6.12.7), then review the mistakes from the last two weeks.

Week 4: Human geography (1)

• 6.12.8: population: world population distribution and its causes, the components of growth (births, deaths and migration), measures such as the natural increase rate, the population pyramid and density, Malthus and the demographic transition.
• 6.12.9: economic geography: the theories of von Thunen, Weber and Christaller, types of economic activity (primary, secondary and tertiary), renewable and non-renewable resources, and transport and its effect on production.
• 6.12.10: settlement: rural and urban settlements, urban land-use models (concentric zones, sectors and multiple nuclei), city functions, and urban problems and their solutions.
• End of the week: practise these three standards, and work population problems without a calculator.

Week 5: Human geography (2) and cartography

• 6.12.11: political geography: how states form, types of political boundary (natural, geometric and artificial), state shapes, and international organisations such as the United Nations, the GCC, the OIC and OPEC.
• 6.12.12: historical geography: ancient areas of human settlement (Mesopotamia, the Nile and the Indus), the ages of civilisation, and the ancient kingdoms of the Arabian Peninsula.
• 6.12.13: cartography: map types and elements, map scale and converting it, relief shown by contour lines, ways of representing data (dot maps, choropleth maps and isolines), and projection types.
• 6.12.14: GIS and remote sensing: the components of a system, vector and raster data, GPS, and aerial photographs and satellite images.
• End of the week: practise all of human geography (6.12.8 to 6.12.12), then cartography. Convert scales on paper, and remember that converting area involves squares.

Week 6: Regional geography

• 6.12.15: physical geography of the Islamic and Arab world: astronomical and geographic position, geological structure, climate (dry desert roughly between latitudes 18 and 30 north), biomes and environmental problems.
• 6.12.16: human geography of the Islamic and Arab world: population distribution, resources and oil, economic activities, economic integration, and passages such as the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz.
• 6.12.17: physical geography of Saudi Arabia: position, area and borders, the Arabian Shield and the sedimentary platform, the deserts (the Empty Quarter, the Nafud and the Dahna) and the Sarawat mountains, climate, and water, desalination and dams.
• 6.12.18: human geography of Saudi Arabia: the censuses, population characteristics and the factors behind its distribution, economic resources and industrial cities such as Jubail and Yanbu, and tourism under Vision 2030.
• End of the week: practise the whole domain. Standard 6.12.18 has the highest weight in the domain (6%), so give it more time.

Week 7: Skills and teaching methods, and your first full mock

• 6.12.19: the aims of teaching geography, geographic research methods and statistics (mean, median, standard deviation and correlation).
• 6.12.20: effective teaching strategies: cooperative learning, problem solving, inquiry, discovery, role play, brainstorming and concept maps, writing behavioural objectives, and strategies for gifted students and students with learning difficulties.
• 6.12.21: learning resources: atlases, globes, models, field trips and digital maps, primary against secondary sources, and choosing a reliable source.
• 6.12.22 and 6.12.23: geographic skills (reading and drawing maps, finding direction, measuring distance, reading charts) and the geography curricula now taught in general education, with the elements of a curriculum and how it is organised.
• End of the week: practise this domain, then take your first full timed mock exam in two hours with no phone and no calculator. Compare its result with your week-one diagnosis, domain by domain.

Week 8: Review

• Go over the mistakes from the first full mock and return to its two weakest domains. Start with skills and teaching if it is one of them, as it is 23% of the questions.
• A second full mock exam in the middle of the week, then review its mistakes.
• Two days before the test: a third full mock exam, then a light review. Do not start a new topic on the last day.
• Test day: check the ID you need and what is allowed, sleep early and arrive early.

If you have less time

If fewer than eight weeks remain, start with the diagnosis and compress the plan in this order: skills and teaching first, then human and physical geography, then regional geography, then the rest. Keep the last three days for two full mock exams and a review of their mistakes.

This plan is our suggestion for organising your time and does not guarantee any score, and your mock exam score is an estimate of readiness, not an official result. Start unit practice with skills and teaching methods (23%) and human geography (22%), and keep the full mock exam for the end of the plan.