1.1 Current TKT Module 2 Facts & Format

Why Module 2 logistics belong on the first study page

The Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) is a Cambridge English teaching qualification from Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Module 2 has a named object of assessment: Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching. Candidates lose easy marks when they study the wrong object — for example when they practise writing a full lesson plan against the clock, when they treat the paper as a test of classroom performance, or when they memorise one publisher's coursebook page by page. TKT Module 2 is an objective test of teaching knowledge. You choose letters on a paper answer sheet or on a centre computer. You do not teach a class, you do not submit a portfolio, and you do not write an essay.

This OpenExamPrep chapter is independent study material that helps teachers study TKT Module 2 topics. It is not a Cambridge English publication, and it does not claim any official relationship with Cambridge University Press & Assessment beyond using publicly available handbook, glossary, and candidate-information facts.

Current 2026 format

Cambridge English assesses each TKT module with 80 objective questions in 80 minutes. Each question carries one mark, so the raw total is 80. Module 2 is organised as two parts of 40 questions each. That split is also a 50% / 50% mark split: Part 1 planning and Part 2 resources. The current TKT: Modules 1–3 Handbook for teachers describes 6 tasks per part. On that handbook page the listed task types are matching and multiple choice. Older candidate booklets mentioned extra objective types such as sequencing and odd-one-out. For 2026 study, treat matching and multiple choice as the current published types, and do not invent extra live formats.

Pacing follows from those numbers. Eighty marks in eighty minutes is one minute per item if you spread time evenly. Matching tasks, however, usually present a set of classroom extracts and a longer list of aims, plan headings, or resource functions. You cannot spend a full minute staring at item 1 of a seven-item matching set and still finish the set. A practical approach is to read the rubric once, mark the options you are sure of, then return to leftovers. There is no speaking paper, no listening paper, and no extended writing, so unused time cannot be banked for a later skill.

What each part actually tests

Part 1 — Planning and preparing a lesson or sequence of lessons (40 marks) tests what teachers consider while planning a lesson or a short series of lessons. Teaching in this module also includes assessment as a planning decision, not as a separate observed skill. The published syllabus areas are: identifying and selecting aims appropriate to learners, the stage of learning, and lesson types; identifying the components of a lesson plan; planning an individual lesson or a sequence by choosing and sequencing activities; and choosing assessment activities appropriate to learners, aims, and stages of learning.

Part 2 — Selection and use of resources (40 marks) tests how teachers use linguistic and methodological reference resources, coursebook materials, supplementary materials and activities, and teaching aids when they plan. The handbook states plainly that knowledge of any particular book is not required. A matching item may describe “a set of picture cards used to elicit food vocabulary” without naming a title. If your school uses only one coursebook, study the functions of materials — presentation, controlled practice, gist reading, freer speaking — not the unit numbers of that book.

The two-part map below is the syllabus you are sitting, not a classroom observation rubric.

Digital versus paper-based sittings

Cambridge English offers TKT as a digital test and as a paper-based test. Both are taken at an authorised centre under the same kind of test conditions. There is no at-home TKT. The syllabus is the same, and the certificate is the same. What changes is booking lead time, how items are allocated in the room, and how quickly results typically return.

Those “typical” windows are Cambridge English’s published planning figures. A centre can still close a digital date earlier if computers are full, and a paper-based centre can still set a local closing date that is not exactly six weeks. Always confirm the live date with the centre that will take your entry. Do not treat a blog’s fee, a Facebook group’s result date, or another country’s British Council calendar as a global Cambridge rule.

Bands, certificates, and order of modules

TKT Module 2 has no pass mark and no fail grade. Performance is reported on Bands 1–4. Teachers often carry a rough shorthand — Band 1 limited, Band 4 extensive — but that shorthand is a study mnemonic, not Cambridge wording. Learn the published Module 2 descriptors instead. Band 1 shows restricted knowledge and a limited range of concepts, terminology, practices, and processes, related to familiar classroom situations only. Band 2 shows basic knowledge of some of those concepts, related mainly to familiar situations and only occasionally to unfamiliar ones. Band 3 generally shows comprehensive, extensive knowledge of most concepts and can generally relate them to both familiar and unfamiliar situations. Band 4 shows comprehensive, extensive knowledge of the full range of concepts and can relate them to both familiar and unfamiliar classroom situations.

Because there is no pass/fail cut, “I need 65 percent” is the wrong study question. The useful question is whether you can name an aim type, a plan component, or a resource function in a classroom situation you have not taught yourself. That is what Band 3 and Band 4 language is pointing at.

Each module has its own certificate. You may take modules in any order and in any combination. Completing Module 2 does not require Module 1 first. A teacher who wants a planning-and-resources certificate can sit Module 2 alone.

Language level, fees, and what the test is not

Cambridge English recommends a minimum of CEFR B1 so that candidates can read the professional terminology on the paper. TKT is not a formal language-entry test. Centres do not use it as a CEFR placement exam, and a Band 4 on Module 2 is not a C1 language certificate.

Fees and dates are set by local authorised centres. Cambridge English does not publish one global TKT fee. A figure you saw for a sitting in another city is not your fee. This guide will not invent a dollar, euro, or sterling price.

Two further limits are easy to miss. First, TKT tests teaching knowledge, not observed classroom performance. A teacher who manages young learners brilliantly can still miss a matching item that asks for the stage aim of a gist-reading task. Second, knowledge of any particular coursebook is not required. Items describe materials by function, not by brand.

Cambridge English does not publish a global pass rate for TKT Module 2. Do not study toward an invented percentage, and do not quote one in a staffroom as if it were official.

Traps that waste a preparation week

• Preparing a CELTA-style assessed lesson instead of practising objective matching of aims, stages, and resources.
• Inventing a universal fee or a published pass rate.
• Assuming digital TKT can be taken at home, or that digital tests a different syllabus.
• Treating Bands 1–4 as pass/fail, or assuming Band 3 is a hidden cut score.
• Memorising one coursebook’s unit titles because you expect those titles to appear.
• Skipping Part 2 because you “already use materials every day” — the paper still tests why a resource is chosen for an aim, not whether you own the resource.

The pie is 40 marks against 40 marks, not a promise that every live paper will feel “half aims, half flashcards.” Part 1 can still mention a worksheet if the question is really about the aim or the stage. Part 2 can still mention learners’ level if the question is really about selecting an aid. Budget study hours evenly across planning concepts and resource concepts, then drill the boundary: when an item names a classroom object, decide whether the tested idea is the plan or the resource.

OpenExamPrep’s quizzes in this chapter use four options. Live TKT matching tasks often use a longer option list shared across several questions. Practise the decision (aim versus procedure, planning versus resources), not a four-option habit as if it were the live paper’s only shape.