The Elementary Education Fundamentals tests are designed to assess whether the entry-level elementary teacher has the content knowledge that is important, necessary, and needed at time of entry to the profession to teach reading, mathematics, social studies, and science at the elementary level.

Each state may require one or more of the subject tests to support a generalist elementary school license.

The Elementary Education Fundamentals: Social Studies test measures the knowledge and skills in social studies necessary for a beginning teacher of children in primary through upper elementary school grades. The 77 selected-response questions reflect material typically covered in a bachelor’s degree program in elementary education, and they are grounded in the National Council for the Social Studies National Curriculum Standards.

Test takers will also find that approximately ten to fifteen percent of questions call for application of social studies content and processes within a teaching scenario or an instructional task. Such questions—designed to measure applications of social studies knowledge to the kinds of decisions and evaluations a teacher must make during work with students, curriculum, and instruction—situate social studies content questions in tasks critical for teaching.

This test may contain some questions that will not count toward your score.

Note: This examination uses the chronological designations B.C.E. (before the common era) and C.E. (common era). These labels correspond to B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno Domini), which are used in some world history textbooks.