AP HUG Free-Response Questions (FRQ) - Past Prompts

Overview

2019 FRQs

Set 1, Question 1

1. Describe what kinds of information geographers use to map food deserts.
2. Identify and explain TWO reasons that food deserts exist in urban areas within developed countries.
3. Identify and explain ONE impact of living in a food desert.

Set 1, Question 2

1. Identify the predominant ranges of the infant mortality rate found in South Asia and in western Europe.
2. Describe TWO economic reasons for the level of infant mortality rates in western Europe.
3. Identify and explain a specific way in which each of the following TWO United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are intended to affect infant mortality rates in a rural community in South Asia.
   1. Quality education
   2. Clean water and sanitation

Set 1, Question 3

1. Define devolution.
2. Describe how each of the following forces contributes to devolutionary pressures within a country.
   1. Cultural diversity
   2. Regional economic differences
   3. Physical geography and territorial size
3. Identify and explain ONE political impact resulting from devolutionary pressures related to cultural differences in either Spain or Nigeria.

Set 2, Question 1

1. Identify and describe the economic sector that becomes dominant when a country deindustrializes and restructures from an industrial to a postindustrial economy.
2. Describe TWO ways countries transitioning to a postindustrial economy utilize the international division of labor.
3. Describe ONE way in which the roles of women in the paid labor force of developed countries change as a result of the transition to a post-industrial economy.
4. Describe TWO ways in which brownfields can be redeveloped in postindustrial cities.

Set 2, Question 2

1. Describe TWO factors that led to the development of the galactic city as an urban landscape in North America.
2. Describe TWO ways that the spatial organization of commercial land use is different between the original central business district (CBD) and an edge city.
3. Describe ONE negative impact of edge city development on the environment.
4. Explain TWO ways sustainable design initiatives or smart growth policies could address negative impacts of edge city development on the environment.

Set 2, Question 3

1. Identify ONE geopolitical event that initiated change in the number of international boundaries in Europe between 1980 and 2013.
2. Explain how nationalism can eliminate an international boundary. Describe an example from the maps shown.
3. Explain how nationalism can create new international boundaries. Describe an example from the maps shown.
4. Describe TWO ways supranationalism has affected the functions of international boundaries in Europe.

2018 FRQs

Question 1

1. Identify a country where more than 75 percent of women in the labor force are active in agriculture.
2. For each of the following THREE categories, describe ONE obstacle that may prevent women working in agriculture from achieving greater gender equality and empowerment.
   1. Economic
   2. Cultural
   3. Political
3. Identify and explain ONE impact of empowering women within the rural agricultural regions of developing countries.

Question 2

1. Explain TWO ways that gentrification may positively impact neighborhoods.
2. Explain TWO ways that gentrification may negatively impact neighborhoods.
3. Identify and explain ONE way that city governments may reduce the negative impacts of gentrification.

Question 3

1. Identify TWO specific means by which new expressions in popular culture are diffused globally.
2. Popular culture often spreads through a combination of different types of diffusion. Describe how terms, such as those shown in the table, diffuse spatially through each of the following processes.
   1. Relocation Diffusion
   2. Contagious Diffusion
   3. Hierarchical Diffusion
3. When new words diffuse, they confront barriers. Identify and explain TWO barriers to diffusion that are often encountered even as new terms become more popular.

2017 FRQs

Question 1

1. Identify TWO goals of the New Urbanism movement.
2. Explain the differences between mixed-use development and traditional zoning practices.
3. Explain TWO benefits of mixed-use development in promoting urban growth.
4. Explain TWO criticisms of New Urbanism.

Question 2

1. Identify the world region on the map with the highest rates of natural increase.
2. Using the region identified in part A, explain THREE factors that contribute to high population growth rates.
3. Describe ONE economic incentive that a country with a high population growth rate could use to decrease population growth, and identify ONE potential impact of this strategy.
4. Describe ONE social program or policy that a country with a high population growth rate could use to decrease population growth, and identify ONE potential impact of this strategy.

Question 3

1. Define unitary state and identify the country shown that fits the definition of a unitary state.
2. Explain ONE positive and ONE negative impact of a unitary system.
3. Identify and explain ONE reason why some countries are governed as federal states.

2016 FRQs

Question 1

1. Identify primary, secondary, and tertiary economic activities.
2. Explain TWO different reasons for each of the following changes that typically occur as a country develops over time.
   1. Declines in primary sector employment
   2. Decreases in infant mortality rates
   3. Improvements in women's social status

Question 2

1. Identify the primary language spoken by most inhabitants in the shaded area on the map.
2. Explain how bilingualism can have a positive impact on a country.
3. Explain how bilingualism can have a negative impact on a country.
4. Discuss TWO reasons, other than language, why Canada does not fit the nation-state concept.

Question 3

1. Identify the grain crop shown in the photo.
2. Discuss TWO economic differences between subsistence agriculture and commercial agriculture.
3. Identify ONE environmental impact resulting from the type of agriculture shown in photo Y.
4. Identify ONE environmental impact resulting from the type of agriculture shown in photo Z.

2015 FRQs

Question 1

1. Identify the political phenomenon represented on the map.
2. Explain the relationship between redistricting and the census.
3. Identify and discuss TWO political consequences that could result from redistricting.

Question 2

1. Define the term “lingua franca.”
2. Identify and describe ONE historical factor that contributed to the worldwide use of English.
3. Identify and explain TWO examples that show how globalization is contributing to English becoming the world’s lingua franca.

Question 3

1. Define the term “refugee.”
2. Discuss ONE political, ONE social, and ONE environmental reason why refugees flee their country of origin.
3. Using the chart shown, select a country of origin; then identify and explain ONE reason why refugees have left the country.
4. Explain TWO economic impacts that refugees can have on a receiving country.

2014 FRQs

Question 1

1. Identify and compare three differences between the stages of economic growth and the core-periphery model.
2. Use one of the two models to explain the level of economic development in either Mexico or Brazil.
3. Give two examples of how the core-periphery concept can be applied below the national scale.

Question 2

1. Describe the concept of a superimposed boundary.
2. Describe three political or cultural consequences of superimposed boundaries in Africa.
3. Identify and explain one challenge landlocked African countries face in developing viable economies.

Question 3

1. Describe a common characteristic shared by the coffee-producing countries shown on the map.
2. Explain two impacts of coffee farming on producing countries.
3. Identify and explain one way increased coffee consumption outside of coffee growing areas affects its production.
4. Explain one change in the urban landscape in the developed world associated with coffee consumption.

2013 FRQs

Question 1

1. Discuss the following three factors that contributed to the rise of such industrial regions.
   1. Investment capital
   2. Labor
   3. Government
2. Define the concept of agglomeration and explain its role in the continuing expansion of such regions.

Question 2

1. Identify and explain two reasons that the average population age is increasing in developed countries.
2. Identify and explain one social consequence and one economic consequence that countries face as their populations age.

Question 3

1. Identify and explain one way that railroads affected the size and one way that railroads affected the form of cities in the United States between 1870 and 1920.
2. Identify and explain two ways that the Interstate Highway System affected cities in the United States between 1950 and today.

2012 FRQs

Question 1

1. Identify three examples of walls or other barriers built by countries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
2. Explain the purpose of one of the examples you identified in part a.
3. For each of the categories listed below, discuss a consequence faced by countries as a result of walls or other barriers established along their borders.
   1. social or political
   2. economic
   3. environmental

Question 2

1. Define subsistence agriculture.
2. Describe the practice of shifting cultivation.
3. Explain one reason why shifting cultivation was sustainable in the past.
4. Explain two reasons why shifting cultivation is expected to diminish during the twenty-first century

Question 3

1. Identify Countries X, Y, and Z on the map above.
2. Explain two reasons for the increase in Muslim immigration to one of these countries since 1950.
3. For the country you selected in part b, discuss the impacts of the Muslim population increase on the country’s
   1. urban spatial organization
   2. population structure
   3. social relations

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