The FTCE Social Science 6–12 examination (test code 037) is the Florida subject area examination for certification to teach social science in grades 6 through 12. It is a computer-based test (CBT) of approximately 80 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours and 30 minutes, weighted 25 percent to world history and 25 percent to U.S. history. The passing score, in the Florida Department of Education’s published form, is: A scaled score of at least 200. The FLDOE/Pearson examination fee is $150.
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What this examination certifies
The FTCE Social Science 6–12 examination is the subject area examination attached to Florida’s Social Science (6-12) certificate. It measures whether a candidate holds the knowledge of the social sciences that a Florida middle or high school social science teacher is expected to command — not one school subject but the federation of them: geography, economics, political science, world history, U.S. history, and the methodology of the social sciences themselves. The official Test Information Guide organises that federation into six competencies, and half the paper is history: world history and U.S. history carry 25 percent each, with economics and political science at 15 percent each and geography and methodology at 10 percent each closing the blueprint.
A note on naming, because Florida’s catalog invites one specific error and this page will not make it: the examination is named Social Science, not Social Studies. It is also not the Middle Grades Social Science 5–9 examination (code 038), which is a separate, smaller examination on its own blueprint for a different grade band. This program covers the FTCE Social Science 6–12 examination — code 037, its six competencies and fifty-three published skills — and nothing borrowed from the middle grades examination or from any other state’s social studies paper. The companion reference is the FTCE Social Science 6–12 Exam Guide, which sets out the route, the competencies and skills in full, and the sitting in detail.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Examination | FTCE Social Science 6–12 — Florida Teacher Certification Examinations, test code 037 |
| Certification | Subject area examination for Florida’s Social Science (6-12) certificate — teaching social science in grades 6–12 |
| Format | Computer-based test (CBT) with approximately 80 multiple-choice questions; each question has four response options (A, B, C, D). Tests may include questions being evaluated for future administrations that do not affect the score |
| Length | 2 hours and 30 minutes of testing time; total appointment time is longer, and any time taken for breaks is considered part of the available testing time |
| Content | Six competencies under the official Test Information Guide: World History 25%; U.S. History 25%; Economics 15%; Political Science 15%; Geography 10%; Social Science and Its Methodology 10% — percentages are the guide’s approximate percentages of total test questions |
| Passing score | A scaled score of at least 200 |
| Examination fee | FLDOE/Pearson fee: $150 |
| Reference materials | None provided for this test |
| Delivery and scores | By appointment, year-round, at computer-based test sites throughout Florida and nationwide. On-site score reports are typically provided immediately after testing; all official score reports are released within 4 weeks of testing |
| Administrator | The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) owns the FTCE program; Pearson administers the examinations. PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with FLDOE or Pearson |
What the examination covers
Competency 1: Knowledge of Geography — 10%
The smallest competency by weight, and the one that supplies the paper’s spatial toolkit. Its four skills examine the six essential elements of geography; the ways natural processes and human-environment interactions shape the Earth’s physical systems and features; the ways those same processes shape cultural features — communities, language, technology, and political and economic institutions; and the analysis of geographic information from maps, charts, and graphs. Geography on this paper is a working method as much as a body of facts: the map and chart skills here reappear inside the history and methodology items, where a candidate who cannot read the graphic cannot reach the question behind it.
Competency 2: Knowledge of Economics — 15%
Seven skills carry the economics competency from first principles to the household. It opens with scarcity and opportunity cost and how they influence choices about allocating resources, and with how market, command, and traditional economic systems answer the three basic economic questions. It examines the interaction of supply and demand in determining production, distribution, and consumption; how macroeconomic factors — national income, employment, price stability — influence the performance of economic systems; the roles of government, central banking systems, and specialized institutions such as corporations, labor unions, banks, and stock markets; the features of global economics — exchange rates, terms of trade, comparative advantage, less developed countries — and their impact on national and international systems; and, closing at the level of the individual candidate’s own students, the functions of budgeting, saving, and credit in a consumer economy.
Competency 3: Knowledge of Political Science — 15%
The political science competency is the paper’s civics core, in seven skills. It examines the features and principles of the U.S. Constitution, including its amendments, the separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism; the functions of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; the effects of voter behavior, political parties, interest groups, public opinion, and mass media on the electoral process; the elements and functions of state and local governments; the guiding concepts, principles, and effects of U.S. foreign policy; a comparison of various political systems in their elements, structures, and functions; and the key elements of U.S. citizenship — rights, privileges, and responsibilities. Note the competency’s shape: constitutional structure first, then the political process that operates inside it, then the citizen who stands at the end of both.
Competency 4: Knowledge of World History — 25%
Thirteen skills make world history, jointly, the largest part of the examination. The competency runs from the characteristics of prehistoric cultures and the early civilizations — the guide names Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indus Valley, and Chinese — through the influence of the ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese civilizations on modern civilization, and the major contributions of African, Asian, and Mesoamerican societies before 1500. It covers the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation; the social, cultural, political, and economic characteristics of African, Asian, and eastern European societies from 1500 to 1900; the scientific, intellectual, and philosophical contributions of the Age of Reason through the Age of Enlightenment; the Age of Exploration; the Industrial Revolution; the Age of Revolution; the impact of imperialism and nationalism; the political transformations and military conflicts of the 20th century; contemporary global issues and trends; and the major world religions and ideologies. The recurring verbs matter — evaluate, assess, analyze sit alongside identify — because this competency examines judgement about causes and effects, not chronology alone.
Competency 5: Knowledge of U.S. History — 25%
Sixteen skills — the longest skill list on the blueprint — carry the second quarter of the paper. The competency opens with the impact of the Age of Exploration on the Americas and the development of the Americas during the colonial period, then works the named eras in sequence: the Revolutionary era; the Constitutional era and the early republic; westward expansion and its impact on the emerging nation; the antebellum period; the American Civil War and Reconstruction; the late 19th and early 20th centuries under agrarianism, industrialization, urbanization, reform movements, and immigration; the World War I era; the developments between the wars, where the guide names the Roaring Twenties, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, and the New Deal; the World War II era; the Cold War era in domestic and foreign affairs; the movements for equality, civil rights, and civil liberties in the 19th and 20th centuries; and contemporary domestic and foreign affairs. The final skill is Florida’s own: key individuals, events, and issues related to Florida history — a state-specific strand inside the national narrative that candidates prepared on a generic national syllabus most often miss.
Competency 6: Knowledge of Social Science and Its Methodology — 10%
The professional competency, and the one that converts a content examination into a teaching examination. Its six skills examine the social science disciplines themselves — anthropology, psychology, and sociology are the guide’s examples — and social science concepts such as culture, class, technology, race, and gender; the interrelationships between the disciplines; the interpretation of tabular and graphic representations of social science information; appropriate strategies, methods, tools, and technologies for the teaching of social science; and the evaluation of primary sources — the guide’s examples are letters, photographs, and political cartoons — against secondary sources such as historical texts and encyclopedias. At 10 percent it is easy to underprepare and expensive to miss: these are the skills a candidate cannot borrow from a history degree.
The route, in order
Step 1 — Confirm this is your examination
The Florida Bureau of Educator Certification decides which tests a candidate needs, after the candidate applies for certification. Confirm with the Bureau that the FTCE Social Science 6–12 examination (037) is the subject area examination on your file — and that it is this examination, for grades 6–12, and not the Middle Grades Social Science 5–9 examination — before you register or prepare.
Step 2 — Register and schedule
Registration runs through the official FTCE program site. Tests are by appointment, year-round, and you schedule your test during registration, based on available dates, at computer-based test sites located throughout Florida and nationwide. The FLDOE/Pearson examination fee is $150. When you register, you must agree to abide by all testing rules and policies — read them at registration, not at the test center door.
Step 3 — Sit the examination
Approximately 80 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours and 30 minutes, delivered as a computer-based test (CBT), each question carrying four response options. Your total appointment time will be longer than the testing time, and any time taken for breaks counts as part of your available testing time — there is no pause in this examination’s clock. No reference materials are provided for this test. The test may include questions being evaluated for future administrations that do not affect your score and cannot be identified, so every question earns full effort.
Step 4 — Read the result in the program’s terms
On-site score reports are typically provided immediately after testing, though on-site reporting may not be available for tests being redeveloped or revised; all official score reports are released within 4 weeks of testing. The result is stated against the published standard: a scaled score of at least 200. The full route and blueprint are in the companion FTCE Social Science 6–12 Exam Guide.
What makes this examination demanding
The first demand is the double history load. World history and U.S. history are separately blueprinted competencies carrying a quarter of the paper each, and strength in one does not substitute for the other: a candidate fluent in the national narrative is still examined, at full competency weight, on pre-1500 African, Asian, and Mesoamerican societies, the Age of Reason, and contemporary global issues. The second demand is breadth at speed: approximately 80 questions across six competencies and fifty-three skills in 150 minutes leaves under two minutes a question, and the source-, map-, and graph-based items consume more than that average. The third demand is the long tail of the blueprint — economics and political science together are 30 percent of the paper, larger than either history competency alone, and the methodology competency tests a professional skill set that pure content study never touches. The fourth is the Florida strand: U.S. history’s final skill examines Florida history specifically, inside a national competency, where a candidate studying from a national outline alone will not find it.
The credential at work
The Social Science (6-12) certificate is Florida’s composite secondary social science credential. Its holder can be assigned across a middle or high school’s social science department — world history, U.S. history, geography, civics and government, economics — rather than to a single course, which is exactly the breadth the examination’s six competencies describe. In a state with a large and growing school-age population, that flexibility is the credential’s working value: the teacher the department can schedule anywhere is the teacher the examination was built to certify.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Practice in the examination’s own shape. The FTCE Social Science 6–12 examination is approximately 80 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours and 30 minutes, and the program in the works practises in that shape: timed work at the real pace — under two minutes a question — weighted to the official blueprint, with world history and U.S. history carrying half the practice volume between them, as they carry half the paper.
Written from the primary sources. The program is written from the official Test Information Guide for this examination — the six competencies, the fifty-three skills, and the guide’s approximate percentages — and from the official test page for code 037. It teaches the blueprint as published, including the Florida history skill inside U.S. history and the methodology competency at its full published weight.
The disciplines worked, not just named. Because the guide’s skills run on analysis verbs — analyzing supply and demand, geographic information, causes and effects, tabular and graphic representations — the program practises the operations themselves: reading a map or a table before reading the options, working a supply-and-demand relationship, evaluating a primary source against a secondary one.
The whole candidate, not only the test-taker. Around the practice, the program carries the Florida route as FLDOE and Pearson publish it — confirming the examination with the Bureau of Educator Certification, registration and scheduling, the break rule that keeps the clock running, and the published passing standard stated exactly as FLDOE states it.
Preparation only. This is preparation for an examination owned by the Florida Department of Education and administered by Pearson. PassProfessor is not affiliated with FLDOE or Pearson, and the Department does not endorse third-party preparation materials. Nothing here substitutes for any certification requirement.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The FTCE Social Science 6–12 program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions are on the examination, and how long is it?
Approximately 80 multiple-choice questions, in 2 hours and 30 minutes of testing time, delivered as a computer-based test (CBT). Each question has four response options. Total appointment time is longer than the testing time, and break time counts against the testing time.
What is the passing score?
A scaled score of at least 200 — stated exactly as the Florida Department of Education publishes it. FLDOE publishes no percentage-correct or number-of-questions equivalent for that standard, and this page does not invent one.
How is the examination weighted?
By the official Test Information Guide’s approximate percentages of total test questions: World History 25%; U.S. History 25%; Economics 15%; Political Science 15%; Geography 10%; Social Science and Its Methodology 10% — six competencies, fifty-three skills.
What does the examination cost?
The FLDOE/Pearson examination fee is $150 — a third-party fee charged by the testing program, separate from any preparation program.
Is this the same examination as Middle Grades Social Science 5–9?
No. Middle Grades Social Science 5–9 (code 038) is a separate examination on its own blueprint for the middle grades band. This program covers FTCE Social Science 6–12 (code 037) only; preparation for one does not substitute for the other.
Is there a Florida history component?
Yes — inside the U.S. history competency. Its final skill examines key individuals, events, and issues related to Florida history. It is a named skill on the official blueprint, not a separate section with its own published weight.
When do I receive my score?
On-site score reports are typically provided immediately after testing, although on-site reporting may not be available for a test being redeveloped or revised. All official score reports are released within 4 weeks of testing.
Are any reference materials provided during the test?
No. The official test page lists reference materials provided for this test as: None.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with FLDOE or Pearson?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Florida Department of Education or Pearson, and confers no certification. FLDOE does not endorse third-party FTCE preparation materials.