Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the difficulties, which Turkish prospective elementary mathematics teachers have in solving the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 released items. Data were collected from 52 teacher candidates through a 26 item-written test. The data indicated that PISA items could be categorized according to whether they require contextual, conceptual or procedural knowledge. Analysis of data also indicated that the participants encountered problems mostly in items requiring the combined contextual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge. Although many of the participants could produce correct answers for procedural knowledge items, several could not, and few were able to give mathematical explanations and make appropriate estimations for conceptual knowledge items. The results lead us to conclude that the prospective teachers’ contextual knowledge was generally fragmented, and that the role of the type of mathematical knowledge identified by PISA items should be explored with particular attention to the function