13.2 Secondary Subject Specializations (English 6-12, Mathematics 6-12, Middle Grades 5-9, Social Science 6-12, Biology 6-12)
Key Takeaways
- English 6-12 (013) is administered in two independently scored sections: a multiple-choice section (approximately 60 questions, 1 hour 30 minutes, scaled 200 to pass) and a 1-hour written performance section (one literary-analysis essay requiring at least 5 out of 8 points).
- Mathematics 6-12 (026) features approximately 50 items spanning number sense and proportionality, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, data analysis and probability, precalculus and calculus, and student reasoning and instructional practice; an on-screen scientific calculator is provided.
- Middle Grades Mathematics 5-9 (025) bridges elementary numeracy and advanced mathematics, emphasizing proportional reasoning, linear functions, bivariate data, and spatial geometry (~50 items, on-screen scientific calculator).
- Social Science 6-12 (037) encompasses approximately 80 items spanning geography, economics, political science, world and US history (25% each), and social science methodology.
- Biology 6-12 (002) covers approximately 80 items across investigative processes, the chemical processes of living things, cell structure, genetics, organismal diversity, ecology, and evolutionary mechanisms (including biotechnology techniques such as PCR and electrophoresis).
Secondary Subject Specializations (Grades 5-9 & 6-12)
Quick Answer: Secondary and Middle Grades FTCE Subject Area Examinations (SAEs) evaluate advanced disciplinary mastery and subject-specific pedagogical content knowledge. Required for single-subject certification in departmentalized middle and high schools, these exams include English 6-12 (013), Mathematics 6-12 (026), Middle Grades Mathematics 5-9 (025), Social Science 6-12 (037), Biology 6-12 (002), and Middle Grades General Science 5-9 (004). Each exam requires a scaled passing score of 200. Most are administered as 2.5-hour computer-based tests, with English 6-12 incorporating a holistic written performance essay.
1. Secondary & Middle Grades SAE Blueprint Overview
Florida's secondary certification framework differentiates between Middle Grades (5-9) and Secondary (6-12) endorsements. Middle grades credentials serve as bridge specializations, whereas 6-12 exams demand advanced undergraduate-level disciplinary expertise.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SECONDARY & MIDDLE GRADES SAE SPECIFICATION COMPARISON |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| Examination Title | Test Code | Question Form | Testing Time | Specialized Testing Tools |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| English 6-12 | 013 | ~60 MC + | MC 1h30 + Essay 1h | Built-in Word Processor |
| | | Written Essay | | (Performance Essay) |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| Mathematics 6-12 | 026 | ~50 MC Items | 2 Hours 30 Minutes | On-Screen Scientific |
| | | | | Calculator (No Ref Sheet) |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| Middle Grades Math | 025 | ~50 MC Items | 2 Hours 30 Minutes | On-Screen Scientific |
| 5-9 | | | | Calculator (No Ref Sheet) |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| Social Science 6-12 | 037 | ~80 MC Items | 2 Hours 30 Minutes | None |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| Biology 6-12 | 002 | ~80 MC Items | 2 Hours 30 Minutes | None |
| | | | | |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+
| Middle Grades | 004 | ~80 MC Items | 2 Hours 30 Minutes | None |
| Science 5-9 | | | | Pop-Up |
+----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------------------+```
---
## 2. English 6-12 (Test Code 013) & Middle Grades English 5-9 (Test Code 014)
The English 6-12 examination assesses literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, writing pedagogy, linguistics, and instructional strategies for adolescent literacy. It is one of the few SAEs featuring a hybrid format: **Multiple-Choice Section + Written Performance Essay**.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | ENGLISH 6-12 (013) COMPETENCY ARCHITECTURE | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ | Competency 1: Effective use of the English language (postsecondary) | 15% | | Competency 2: Communication skills, techniques & processes (writing) | 18% | | Competency 3: Literacy processes and instructional practices | 15% | | Competency 4: Wide range of literary and informational texts | 17% | | Competency 5: Listening, viewing, speaking & presenting techniques | 10% | | Competency 6: Pedagogical content for teaching English language arts | 15% | | Competency 7: Assessments and use of assessment data in ELA | 10% | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ | Performance Comp.: Written Analytical Essay (1 essay / 1 hour) | Pass: >= 5 of 8 Pts | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+```
Advanced Literary Analysis & Movements
Candidates must evaluate texts across major literary periods and traditions:
- American Literature:
- Colonial & Early National (1620–1820): Puritans (Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), Enlightenment thinkers (Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine).
- Romanticism & Transcendentalism (1820–1865): Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance), Henry David Thoreau (Walden), Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), Herman Melville (Moby-Dick), Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson.
- Realism & Naturalism (1865–1914): Mark Twain (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage), Jack London, Kate Chopin (The Awakening).
- Modernism & Harlem Renaissance (1914–1945): F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God).
- Postmodern & Contemporary (1945–Present): Arthur Miller (The Crucible), Toni Morrison (Beloved), Sandra Cisneros, August Wilson.
- British Literature: Old English/Anglo-Saxon (Beowulf), Middle English (Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), Renaissance/Elizabethan (William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton's Paradise Lost), Neoclassical/Restoration (Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift), Romantic (William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley), Victorian (Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Alfred Lord Tennyson, George Eliot), Modern/Postcolonial (Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Chinua Achebe).
- Rhetorical Strategies & The Written Performance Essay:
- Rhetorical Triangle: Ethos (credibility/authority), Pathos (emotional appeal), Logos (logical reasoning and empirical evidence).
- Rhetorical Devices: Chiasmus, anaphora, epistrophe, litotes, synecdoche, metonymy, antithesis, zeugma, polysyndeton.
- Essay Response Strategy: In the written section, candidates analyze an unannotated literary or non-fiction text, identifying the author's central argument/theme and explicitly unpacking two or more rhetorical or literary devices that develop that meaning, maintaining a formal academic register and thesis-driven structure.
3. Mathematics 6-12 (Test Code 026) & Middle Grades Math 5-9 (Test Code 025)
Secondary mathematics certification requires advanced content competence spanning algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry, calculus, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, and statistical inference.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MATHEMATICS 6-12 (026) COMPETENCY BREAKDOWN |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Competency 1: Number sense, operations & proportionality | 8% |
| Competency 2: Knowledge of algebra | 19% |
| Competency 3: Knowledge of geometry and trigonometry | 28% |
| Competency 4: Data analysis, statistics & probability | 19% |
| Competency 5: Knowledge of precalculus and calculus | 16% |
| Competency 6: Student reasoning and instructional practice | 10% |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+```
### Key Higher-Level Mathematical Domains
- **Differential & Integral Calculus:**
- *Limits & Continuity:* Evaluating limit as x approaches c of f(x), L'Hopital's Rule for indeterminate forms 0/0 and infinity/infinity, definition of continuity.
- *Derivatives:* Power rule, product rule, quotient rule, chain rule, implicit differentiation, related rates, optimization problems (finding extrema via first and second derivative tests).
- *Integrals:* Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (integral of f'(x)dx = f(b) - f(a)), integration by substitution (u-substitution), integration by parts, Riemann sums, calculating area between curves and volumes of solids of revolution (disk, washer, and shell methods).
- **Linear Algebra, Vectors & Matrices:**
- Matrix operations: Addition, scalar multiplication, matrix multiplication, determinants, matrix inverses, solving systems of linear equations via Cramer's rule and Gaussian elimination.
- Vector properties: Dot product, cross product, vector projection, orthogonal vectors (dot product = 0).
- **Geometry & Trigonometric Structures:**
- Trigonometric identities: Pythagorean identities (sin^2 x + cos^2 x = 1, 1 + tan^2 x = sec^2 x), angle addition formulas, double angle formulas (sin 2x = 2 sin x cos x, cos 2x = cos^2 x - sin^2 x), Law of Sines, Law of Cosines.
- Conic Sections: Standard forms and eccentricities of circles (e=0), ellipses (0 < e < 1), parabolas (e=1), and hyperbolas (e > 1).
---
## 4. Social Science 6-12 (Test Code 037) & Middle Grades Social Science 5-9 (038)
The Social Science 6-12 examination assesses comprehensive, multi-disciplinary knowledge across history, civics, economics, geography, and behavioral sciences.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | SOCIAL SCIENCE 6-12 (037) DOMAIN ARCHITECTURE | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ | Domain 1: Geography | 10% | | Domain 2: Economics | 15% | | Domain 3: Political Science (Civics & US Constitutional Principles) | 15% | | Domain 4: World History | 25% | | Domain 5: United States History (incl. Florida History) | 25% | | Domain 6: Social Science Methodology & Behavioral Sciences | 10% | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+```
Disciplinary Deep Dive
- United States History:
- Colonial Settlement & Revolution: Jamestown (1607), Mayflower Compact (1620), French and Indian War (1754–1763), Stamp Act, Boston Tea Party, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation vs. Constitution.
- Antebellum, Civil War & Reconstruction: Jacksonian Democracy, Nullification Crisis, Manifest Destiny, Abolitionism, Secession, Battle of Gettysburg, Reconstruction Plans (Presidential vs. Radical Congressional Reconstruction), Jim Crow laws and disenfranchisement.
- 20th & 21st Century: Progressive Era (trust-busting, 16th–19th Amendments), Imperialism, WWI, Great Depression, New Deal (FDIC, SSA, TVA), WWII (Pearl Harbor, Midway, Manhattan Project), Cold War (Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War), Civil Rights Movement, Watergate, 9/11 and War on Terror.
- World History:
- River Valley Civilizations: Mesopotamia (Code of Hammurabi), Ancient Egypt (Nile hydrology, pharaonic dynastic rule), Indus Valley (Harappa/Mohenjo-daro urban planning), Yellow River/Shang China (mandate of heaven).
- Classical & Post-Classical Civilizations: Classical Greece (Athenian direct democracy vs. Spartan oligarchy, Hellenistic synthesis under Alexander the Great), Roman Republic and Empire (Pax Romana, Christianization under Constantine, fall of Western Rome 476 CE), Islamic Golden Age (Abbasid Caliphate, algebra, medical advances), Byzantine Empire, Mongol Conquests (Pax Mongolica across Silk Road).
- Modern Era: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther's 95 Theses 1517), Scientific Revolution (Copernicus, Galileo, Newton), Enlightenment (John Locke's natural rights, Montesquieu's separation of powers, Rousseau's social contract), French Revolution (1789), Industrial Revolution, 19th-Century Imperialism, World War I (causes: M-A-I-N — Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism), Russian Revolution, Interwar Totalitarianism (Fascism in Italy/Germany, Stalinism in USSR), World War II and the Holocaust, Decolonization in Asia/Africa.
- Political Science & Constitutional Law:
- Landmark Supreme Court Precedents:
- Marbury v. Madison (1803): Established judicial review.
- McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): Established federal supremacy and implied powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause.
- Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): Broadened federal authority under the Commerce Clause.
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857): Denied citizenship to African Americans; invalidated Missouri Compromise.
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Established 'separate but equal' doctrine.
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954): Overturned Plessy, ruling segregated schools inherently unequal under the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
- Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): Florida case establishing the 6th Amendment right to state-appointed counsel for indigent defendants.
- Miranda v. Arizona (1966): Required reading of 5th/6th Amendment rights upon custodial interrogation.
- Tinker v. Des Moines (1969): Upheld students' 1st Amendment symbolic speech rights in public schools.
- Landmark Supreme Court Precedents:
- Economics:
- Microeconomics: Supply/demand elasticities, consumer surplus, producer surplus, market structures (Perfect Competition, Monopolistic Competition, Oligopoly, Monopoly), externalities and public goods.
- Macroeconomics: Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Consumer Price Index (CPI) and inflation measurement, unemployment types (frictional, structural, cyclical, seasonal), Federal Reserve monetary policy (reserve requirements, discount rate, open market operations), fiscal policy (taxation, government spending).
5. Biology 6-12 (Test Code 002) & Middle Grades Science 5-9 (004)
The Biology 6-12 examination assesses comprehensive knowledge across molecular biology, genetics, evolutionary theory, organismal physiology, ecology, and biotechnology.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| BIOLOGY 6-12 (002) DOMAIN BREAKDOWN |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Competency 1: Investigative processes of science | 18% |
| Competency 2: Interactions between science, technology & society | 4% |
| Competency 3: Chemical processes of living things | 14% |
| Competency 4: Cell structure & cell function interactions | 7% |
| Competency 5: Genetic principles, processes & applications | 11% |
| Competency 6: Diversity of viruses and prokaryotic organisms | 4% |
| Competency 7: Diversity of protists, fungi, and plants | 8% |
| Competency 8: Structural & functional diversity of animals | 13% |
| Competency 9: Ecological principles and processes | 11% |
| Competency 10: Evolutionary mechanisms | 10% |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+```
### Molecular, Evolutionary & Ecological Foundations
- **Cellular & Molecular Biology:**
- *Biomolecules:* Carbohydrates (monosaccharides, polysaccharides), Lipids (fatty acids, triglycerides, phospholipids in bilayer), Proteins (amino acids joined by peptide bonds; primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary structures; enzymes as biological catalysts lowering activation energy), Nucleic Acids (nucleotides; DNA and RNA).
- *Cellular Metabolism:*
- *Glycolysis (Cytosol, Anaerobic):* Glucose -> 2 Pyruvate + 2 ATP + 2 NADH.
- *Krebs Cycle (Mitochondrial Matrix):* Acetyl-CoA oxidized -> CO2 + 2 ATP + 6 NADH + 2 FADH2.
- *Electron Transport Chain & Oxidative Phosphorylation (Mitochondrial Inner Membrane/Cristae):* Chemiosmosis driven by ATP synthase generating ~32-34 ATP with Oxygen as terminal electron acceptor forming H2O.
- *Protein Synthesis (Central Dogma):*
- *Transcription (Nucleus):* RNA Polymerase synthesizes pre-mRNA from DNA template strand; post-transcriptional processing (5' cap, poly-A tail, splicing of introns and ligation of exons).
- *Translation (Ribosome):* mRNA codons matched to tRNA anticodons delivering amino acids at A, P, and E ribosomal sites.
- **Genetics, Population Genetics & Biotechnology:**
- *Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium:* p + q = 1 (allele frequencies) and p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1 (genotype frequencies), assuming five conditions: (1) No mutations, (2) Random mating, (3) No gene flow/migration, (4) Infinite population size (no genetic drift), (5) No natural selection.
- *Biotechnology Techniques:* Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR: Denaturation 95 deg C, Annealing 55 deg C, Extension 72 deg C), Gel Electrophoresis (separating DNA fragments by size; smaller fragments migrate faster toward positive anode), Recombinant DNA via restriction enzymes and DNA ligase, CRISPR-Cas9 targeted genome editing.
- **Evolution & Cladistics:**
- Natural selection mechanisms: Directional, stabilizing, and disruptive selection. Speciation models: Allopatric (geographic isolation) vs. Sympatric (reproductive isolation without physical separation).
- Phylogenetics & Cladograms: Monophyletic clades (common ancestor and all descendants), synapomorphies (shared derived traits), homologous structures (divergent evolution, shared ancestry, e.g., human arm and bat wing) vs. analogous structures (convergent evolution, distinct ancestry, e.g., bird wing and butterfly wing).
A high school mathematics teacher is preparing students for AP Calculus and wants to assess their conceptual understanding of optimization using differential calculus. A rectangular garden is to be constructed along the side of an existing brick wall, requiring fencing on only three sides. If the total length of available fencing is 120 meters, what is the maximum area of the garden that can be enclosed?
In a 10th-grade English Language Arts class, students analyze an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address ('Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...'). Lincoln concludes with the phrase '...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.' Which specific rhetorical device is employed in this concluding phrase?
In the landmark 1963 United States Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which originated in Bay County, Florida, the Court established which fundamental constitutional principle under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments?
A geneticist studying a large, randomly mating population of wildflowers in a Florida state park determines that petal color is determined by a single gene with two alleles, where red (R) is completely dominant over white (r). Genetic survey data shows that 9% of the wildflowers in the population exhibit white petals. Assuming the wildflower population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, what percentage of the population is expected to be heterozygous (Rr) carriers of the recessive white allele?
During an advanced secondary biology laboratory, students use gel electrophoresis to analyze DNA samples from a restriction enzyme digestion. When the electrical current is applied, in which direction do the DNA fragments migrate, and which fragments travel the farthest distance from the loading wells?