FTCE General Knowledge Test study guide
FTCE General Knowledge Test · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The FTCE General Knowledge Test (GK) is one of the Florida Teacher Certification Examinations, the testing program Florida uses for educator certification. The General Knowledge Test is the basic-skills battery within that program: candidates who need to demonstrate college-level competence in writing, language, reading, and mathematics take it, and it is typically associated with entry into an educator preparation program or with certification routes that require demonstrated general academic skills. The FTCE General Knowledge Test study guide has 4 sections and about 1,243 words.
01Essay: Building a Scored, Timed Persuasive Response
The Essay portion is a timed, on-demand piece of persuasive or expository writing scored holistically. Readers weigh four qualities: a clear central claim (focus), a logical plan (organization), specific support (development), and control of standard written English (conventions).
330 words, about 2 min02English Language Skills: Usage, Sentence Structure, and Conventions
This domain checks whether you can recognize and fix errors in standard written English. Expect items on sentence completeness (fragments, run-ons, comma splices), subject-verb agreement, pronoun case and agreement, verb tense and form, modifier placement (dangling and misplaced), parallelism, logical comparisons, punctuation (commas, semicolons, colons, apostrophes), capitalization, spelling and homophones, and idioms.
308 words, about 2 min03Reading: Comprehension and Critical Analysis
Reading items ask you to identify the main idea or best summary, locate and interpret supporting details, follow organizational patterns (chronological, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, problem-solution), draw logical inferences, determine the author's purpose and tone, judge fact versus opinion, evaluate the strength of an argument and its evidence, and define words from context. Many wrong answers are true in the real world but not supported by the passage, so outside knowledge can betray you.
306 words, about 2 min04Mathematics: Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and Data
The Mathematics domain spans number sense and operations (fractions, decimals, percents, order of operations, exponents, radicals), ratios and proportions, percent increase and decrease, algebraic expressions and equations, inequalities, linear equations and slope, systems of equations, factoring and quadratics, geometry (perimeter, area, volume, angle relationships, Pythagorean theorem, similar figures), coordinate geometry, unit conversion, and statistics and probability (mean, median, mode, range, simple probability, counting principle), often embedded in word problems. Percent questions confuse "percent of" with "percent increase," and successive percents are not added but multiplied.
299 words, about 1 min