Geography Teacher License Test Content: 6 Domains, 23 Standards and Weights
Content of the Geography teacher license test: the six domains and weights (skills and teaching 23%), all 23 standards with each weight, ETEC's question style, and why there is one test rather than two levels.
- Questions and time
- 88 questions · 120 minutes
- Pass mark
- 50%
- Exam fee
- SAR 100 for the subject test
Start with 10 free questions to find what needs more work. No sign-up, with answer explanations.
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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 for the Teachers' Professional License test in Geography and the Geography 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 Geography test covers 23 standards in six domains. The largest is skills, scientific methods, teaching methods and learning resources at 23%, then human geography at 22%, physical geography at 21% and regional geography at 20%; the other two domains are 10% and 4%. ETEC publishes the weight of every single standard (from 3% to 6%). There is no Geography 1 and Geography 2; it is a single test.
One test for geography
ETEC publishes one guide and one set of standards for geography teachers, unlike science, maths and English, which each have two levels. Social studies, history and sociology are separate subjects with their own guides and standards, so do not mix them up with geography. A useful feature of this test is that the weights are given for each of the 23 standards, so you know what each one is worth before you start studying.
Test format
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Number of questions | 88 questions |
| Question type | Multiple choice with four options; each question measures one indicator of one standard |
| Duration | 120 minutes (two hours) |
| Delivery | Paper or computer depending on the subject; it appears in your personal profile |
| Language | Arabic |
| Calculator | Not allowed |
| Scoring | Criterion-referenced; wrong answers carry no penalty |
| Level scores | 50 for Practitioner Teacher, 70 for Advanced Teacher, 80 and above for Expert Teacher (Professional License Regulations, Article 4) |
The six domains and their weights
These weights come from the figure and table on pages 6 and 7 of the candidate guide. The number of questions out of 88 is worked out from these weights.
| Domain | Official weight | Standards | Questions out of 88 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic Theory, Its Development and Branches | 4% | 1 | 4 |
| Physical Geography | 21% | 6 | 18 |
| Human Geography | 22% | 5 | 19 |
| Cartography and Geographic Information Technology | 10% | 2 | 9 |
| Regional Geography | 20% | 4 | 18 |
| Geographic Skills, Research Methods, Teaching and Learning Resources | 23% | 5 | 20 |
| Total | 100% | 23 | 88 |
Each question measures one indicator, and the test does not have to cover every indicator. Four of the six domains sit between 20% and 23%, so no single domain dominates.
The 23 standards one by one
Standard names follow the standards document (numbered 6.12.1 to 6.12.23; the English is our translation), each standard's weight comes from the table on page 7 of the guide, and the "What it measures" column is our summary of its indicators.
Geographic Theory, Its Development and Branches (4%)
| Standard | Name | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12.1 | Core concepts, aims, history and branches of geography | 4% | Definitions of geography and how they compare, its development across civilisations, Muslim contributions and why they arose, and the branches of geography and their links to other fields |
Physical Geography (21%)
| Standard | Name | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12.2 | Astronomical geography | 3% | The universe and galaxies, classifying the solar system and the features of its bodies, and lines of latitude and longitude in relation to time, climate and location |
| 6.12.3 | Landforms and geomorphology | 4% | Geomorphology and its link to geology, how continents formed and separated (plates) and a comparison of continental and oceanic plates, classifying surface forms, and internal and external processes and their effects |
| 6.12.4 | Climatology | 5% | Layers of the atmosphere, weather and climate elements and their effects, observation instruments and how they work, the Köppen classification and its link to world biomes, and air pollution, climate change and international efforts |
| 6.12.5 | Biogeography | 3% | The concept of biogeography and its link to botany and ecology, the major biomes and what controls their distribution, and the degradation of natural environments, the human role, protection and development |
| 6.12.6 | Hydrology | 3% | The hydrosphere, the water cycle and water distribution and climate, groundwater (source, layers, types, movement, distribution), and the importance of water, freshwater shortage and conservation |
| 6.12.7 | Seas and oceans | 3% | Physical features of seas and oceans, water movements (currents, tides, waves) with their causes and economic effects, and the waters around Saudi Arabia (the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf) and their protection |
Human Geography (22%)
| Standard | Name | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12.8 | Population geography | 5% | The concept of population geography and its links to other fields, the world distribution of people and its causes, the elements of growth (births, deaths, migration), ways to measure and analyse growth, and population-growth problems |
| 6.12.9 | Economic geography | 5% | The concept and fields of economic geography, its main theories, types of economic activity and their distribution, economic resources and their effect on the environment, and transport and its effect on production |
| 6.12.10 | Settlement and urban geography | 4% | The concept and origins of settlement geography, telling rural from urban settlements, urban land use and the functional classification of cities, and urban problems with their causes and solutions |
| 6.12.11 | Political geography | 5% | The concept of political geography and its links to other fields, the stages of state formation and types of political boundary and their importance, the physical and human elements of a state, international organisations and their roles, and the causes of international issues |
| 6.12.12 | Historical geography | 3% | The concept of historical geography and its links to other fields, the early areas of human settlement and their link to modern races, and the classification and features of the civilisation ages, especially in the Arabian Peninsula |
Cartography and Geographic Information Technology (10%)
| Standard | Name | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12.13 | Cartography and map skills | 6% | The concept and classification of maps, the stages of making paper and digital maps, map elements, representing data with suitable symbols and graphics, map-use skills, and projection types, how they are classified and choosing the right one |
| 6.12.14 | GIS and remote sensing | 4% | The concept and development of GIS and how it differs from other information systems, its applications, components, software, data sources and the coding of features, remote sensing and its components and uses, and telling aerial photographs from satellite images and interpreting them |
Regional Geography (20%)
| Standard | Name | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12.15 | Physical geography of the Islamic and Arab world | 5% | The astronomical and geographical position of the Islamic and Arab world and its effect, geological structure and relief regions, climate, its controls and its effect on resources, biomes, and environmental problems and solutions |
| 6.12.16 | Human geography of the Islamic and Arab world | 4% | Population distribution and the reasons growth differs, types of natural resource and their link to economic activity, the main economic activities and obstacles to development, and the importance, conditions and challenges of economic integration |
| 6.12.17 | Physical geography of Saudi Arabia | 5% | Saudi Arabia's astronomical and geographical position, area, borders and strategic standing, its geological units (the Arabian Shield and the sedimentary platform) and relief regions, climate features and controls, water types and distribution in relation to geology, and the Kingdom's efforts to supply, develop and protect water |
| 6.12.18 | Human geography of Saudi Arabia | 6% | Saudi Arabia's censuses, the characteristics of its population, the factors behind where people live, the classification and distribution of economic resources, their effect on development and the Kingdom's efforts, and tourism types and features under Vision 2030 |
Geographic Skills, Research Methods, Teaching and Learning Resources (23%)
| Standard | Name | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12.19 | Aims of geography teaching, research methods and statistics | 3% | Aims of teaching geography tied to the content of each school stage, using scientific and educational methods to develop students' knowledge, and geographic research methods and statistics for analysing and explaining phenomena |
| 6.12.20 | Effective teaching practices | 6% | Using effective teaching strategies and keeping up with new ones, planning a lesson and choosing a suitable strategy, modern learner-centred strategies and their activities, and strategies for students with learning difficulties |
| 6.12.21 | Learning resources in geography | 5% | The importance of knowledge sources in teaching, choosing the most suitable geography learning resources, guiding students to reliable sources, using resource technologies, and using resources to support geography activities |
| 6.12.22 | Geographic skills | 5% | Classifying the basic geographic skills, using them to support learning, helping students acquire them, building students' skills in line with new developments in the field, and using and developing map skills |
| 6.12.23 | Current geography curricula in general education | 4% | The concept of a curriculum, its foundations, elements and types, the current geography curricula at each stage, the scope-and-sequence matrix of geographic content, and curriculum-development skills in line with new trends |
The heaviest standards are three at 6% each: maps (6.12.13), human geography of Saudi Arabia (6.12.18) and professional practices for effective teaching (6.12.20). The lightest are six standards at 3%, which add up to 18% of the test.
Question style in ETEC's guide
The guide shows ten sample questions with the reasoning behind each answer, then 25 practice questions with an answer key and each question's standard and indicator. These show the style of the test:
- Direct concepts: which term refers to the study of the relationship between the natural environment and culture? The answer is the cultural environment. Similar is which half of the globe has the smallest share of the world's people, and the answer is the southern half, because it is covered by water and ice.
- Explaining and connecting: what can plate tectonic theory help explain? The locations of the world's major mountain ranges. And the arid desert climate of the Islamic and Arab world lies between latitudes 18 and 30 degrees.
- Calculation on paper: a road measuring 5 centimetres on a map at a scale of 1:100000 is 5 km on the ground, with no calculator.
- Teaching questions: four of the ten samples come from the skills, methods and teaching domain, such as gifted students doing better with discovery teaching because they connect many ideas and see patterns clearly, magazines being a primary source of pictorial geographic information, and defining the main headings as the first step before an online search.
- Long options that need careful reading: the practice questions include full-sentence options, on how fjords form, why the outer planets are bigger, and the effect of the 1991 Philippine eruption on average global temperature.
The ten samples touch all six domains. 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
- Start with the free questions to see which domains are weakest for you.
- Do not skip a whole domain: the four large ones (teaching and skills, human, physical and regional) make up 86% of the questions between them. The study plan is built on these weights.
- Start with the heavy standards: physical and human geography of Saudi Arabia (6.12.17 and 6.12.18) add up to 11% of the test, and maps (6.12.13) alone is 6%.
- Practise scale calculations on paper without a calculator.
- Geographic theory is a single standard worth only 4%, so do not give it the time you give the large domains.
Your score on our questions is an estimate of readiness, not an official result. Each unit in unit practice is one of these six domains, so if the free questions show a weakness in maps or regional geography, you can 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 Geography teachers (2020 trial edition): domains, weights and sample questions media.etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Subject standards for Geography teachers (1441 AH / 2020) media.etec.gov.sa