Education & Teaching
Teacher certification exams — starting with Praxis Core, the academic-skills gate to US teacher-preparation programs.
Which exam are you taking?
Exams are grouped with their close relatives — the other tiers of the same licence, the same exam in other states. Open a group to see each exam with its free practice questions, study guide and cheat sheet.
- College placement tests1 exam150 free questionsCollege math and academic placement assessments.ALEKS Math PlacementExplore College placement tests →
- New York State Regents Examinations1 exam70 free questionsNew York State Regents Examinations — the high school exit assessments administered by NYSED.Regents Earth and Space SciencesExplore New York State Regents Examinations →
- Praxis tests2 exams121 free questionsThe ETS Praxis series: Core Academic Skills for Educators and the subject assessments states require for teacher licensure.Praxis CorePraxis Elementary EducationExplore Praxis tests →
- Saudi university admission tests1 exam60 free questionsUndergraduate admission aptitude preparation for Saudi Arabia.Qiyas GATExplore Saudi university admission tests →
- State teacher certification exams6 exams366 free questionsState-specific educator licensure exams — TExES, FTCE, GACE, MTEL, NYSTCE, and CSET.FTCE General KnowledgeTExES Core Subjects EC-6CSET Multiple SubjectsGACE Elementary Education+2 moreExplore State teacher certification exams →
Which teaching or admissions test are you facing?
Teacher certification in the United States is a state matter, and that shapes every test in this section. A state either adopts the Praxis series from ETS or contracts its own program — Florida's FTCE, Texas's TExES, California's CSET, Georgia's GACE, Massachusetts's MTEL, New York's NYSTCE — most of them built and delivered by Pearson's Evaluation Systems group. The tests look alike: a basic-skills or general-knowledge gate, a subject-matter test for the licence area, and in some states a pedagogy test. But the passing scores are set by each state, a Praxis score that passes in one state may not pass in another, and a state program's test is accepted only by that state.
The rest of the section is not certification at all. ALEKS is a college mathematics placement instrument: it is scored as the percentage of topics you have mastered, each institution sets its own cut scores, and the result places you in a course rather than granting anything. The New York Regents examination in Earth and Space Sciences is a high-school exit exam with a laboratory requirement for admission and a scale score as the reported result. Saudi Arabia's General Aptitude Test from ETEC is an undergraduate admissions test of verbal and quantitative reasoning.
Two habits of these programs matter for planning. Most teacher tests are built from subtests, and the state requires a pass on every subtest, not a combined total, so a retake usually means one subtest, not the whole test. And retake rules are program-specific: some allow immediate rebooking, some hold you until results post and then impose a waiting period.
Find your test
Links go to the exam guide, where subtests, time limits, fees and the state's passing scores come from the program's own test page.
Praxis Core is the academic-skills gate — reading, writing, mathematics — offered at a test centre or at home. Praxis Elementary Education is a licence-area test in four subtests. Your state, not ETS, sets the passing score on each.
The FTCE General Knowledge Test is Florida's basic-skills gate with four subtests including an essay, and you must pass all four. Retakes are by subtest.
TExES Core Subjects EC-6 is five subject exams, each passed on its own, and the PPR is the pedagogy test every Texas teacher takes. Retakes cannot be booked until the prior result posts, and then only after a waiting period.
Each is its state's own program with its own scaled passing score. California's CSET verifies subject-matter competence for the multiple-subject credential; Georgia's GACE and Massachusetts's MTEL score at the subtest level; New York's EAS is a single unified test.
Not a pass-fail test. ALEKS asks open-response questions rather than multiple choice, shows your score immediately as the share of topics mastered, and your institution's cut scores decide the course.
Admission requires the laboratory hours the state sets; questions come in phenomenon-based clusters; the state supplies the reference tables; and the reported score is a scale score converted freshly for each administration.
ETEC's General Aptitude Test measures verbal and quantitative reasoning — analytical, deductive and inferential — for undergraduate admission.
How the teacher tests run
- 01Identify which program your state uses — Praxis or its own — and which tests your credential route requires: basic skills, subject matter, pedagogy.
- 02Register through the program's site, choosing test centre or, where offered, at-home delivery.
- 03Pass every subtest. Programs report each subtest separately and require a pass on each; a combined total does not rescue a failed subtest.
- 04Retake only what you failed, under the program's retake rule — immediate rebooking in some programs, a hold until results post and then a waiting period in others.
Fee, format and passing standard
The 8 exams asked about most, of 11 on this page. Each figure is that exam's verified fact, cited to the regulator's page on the exam guide it links to. A blank cell means the regulator publishes no fixed figure.
| Exam | Fee | Questions | Time | Passing | Written by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Praxis Core | — | — | — | Each state sets its own passing score for the three subtests | Educational Testing Service (ETS) |
| Praxis Elementary Education | $180 | 245 | 4h 35m | Each state sets its own passing score for the four subtests | Educational Testing Service (ETS) — Praxis testing program |
| FTCE General Knowledge | $130 | — | 4h 5m | 200 scaled score on each of the ELS, Reading, and Mathematics subtests; at least 6 of 8 points on the Essay subtest | Florida Department of Education / FTCE-FELE (Pearson) |
| TExES Core Subjects EC-6 | $116 | 210 | 5h | 240 scaled score on each of the 5 Subject Exams (pass every exam; TEA reports the overall result as Passed/Not Passed with no total passing score) | Texas Education Agency (TEA) / Texas Examinations of Educator Standards (TExES) program, administered by Pearson (NES) |
| TExES PPR EC-12 | $116 | 100 | 4h 45m | 240 scaled score | Texas Education Agency (TEA), administered by Pearson's National Evaluation Series (tx.nesinc.com) |
| CSET Multiple Subjects | $247 | 143 | 5h | 220 scaled score per subtest | California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), administered by Pearson's Evaluation Systems (California Educator Credentialing Examinations program) |
| GACE Elementary Education | $193 | 150 | 4h | 220 scaled score (scale 100-300) at the induction level; 250 at the professional level | Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC) — GACE program administered under contract by ETS (transitioning to Evaluation Systems, Pearson, effective July 1, 2025) |
| NYSTCE EAS | $80 | 40 | 2h 15m | 520 scaled score (scale 400-600) | New York State Education Department / Pearson (National Evaluation Series, NYSTCE program) |
Who writes these exams
- State education agencies and credentialing commissions
- Set which tests a credential requires and the passing score on each. Florida's DOE, the Texas Education Agency, California's CTC, Georgia's PSC, Massachusetts's DESE and NYSED each own their program.
- ETS and Pearson Evaluation Systems
- ETS writes and delivers Praxis; Pearson's Evaluation Systems builds and delivers most state programs under contract. Neither sets passing scores.
- ALEKS, NYSED and ETEC
- McGraw Hill owns the ALEKS placement instrument; NYSED sets the Regents examinations; ETEC administers Saudi Arabia's admissions tests.
Official pages this section is drawn from
- ETS · Praxis Core Combined (5752)
- ETS · Manage Your Praxis Test Appointment — Reschedule, Retake
- California Commission on Teacher Credentialing · Verifying Subject Matter Competence by Examination (CL-674M)
- Florida Department of Education (FTCE) · General Knowledge Test (GK) (082)
- Florida Department of Education (FTCE) · Retaking Tests or Subtests — FTCE
- Georgia Professional Standards Commission · GACE Registration Bulletin
- Massachusetts DESE (MTEL) · MTEL Retake Policy
- New York State Education Department (NYSTCE) · NYSTCE Retake Policy
- New York State Education Department · Educator Guide to the Regents Examination in Earth and Space Sciences
- McGraw Hill (ALEKS) · ALEKS Placement, Preparation and Learning (PPL)
- Education and Training Evaluation Commission (Saudi Arabia) · ETEC Terminology Guide
What you'll find on every Education & Teaching exam
Each exam has up to four pages, one per job to be done: practice the questions, understand the exam, study the outline, or revise the morning of. Flashcards and glossary terms sit inside the study guide rather than on pages of their own.
- Practice tests11
- Free question banks with a worked explanation on every answer.
- Exam guides11
- Cost, format, eligibility and difficulty, straight from the official outline.
- Study guides11
- Full outline coverage, plus the exam's flashcards and glossary terms.
- Cheat sheets11
- One-page summaries built for the last review, with a PDF download.
Official sources
Every exam number on this page traces to a document published by the body that sets or administers the exam. These are the primary publishers cited across Education & Teaching.
- Florida Department of Education / FTCE-FELE (Pearson)fl.nesinc.comcited by 5 exams
- Educational Testing Service (ETS) — Praxis testing programpraxis.ets.orgcited by 3 exams
- New York State Education Department (NYSED)nysed.govcited by 1 exam
- McGraw Hill (ALEKS)mheducation.comcited by 1 exam
- ETECmedia.etec.gov.sacited by 1 exam
- California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), administered by Pearson's Evaluation Systems (California Educator Credentialing Examinations program)ctc.ca.govcited by 1 exam
Last verified against these documents: