Unit 3 Review (Culture)

4 min read•december 21, 2021

Amanda DoAmaral

AP Human Geography 🚜

320 resources

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Unit III. Cultural Patterns and Processes (13-17%)

In AP Human Geography, unit 3 covers culture including diffusion, religion, language, race, and ethnicity. The following guide will be updated periodically with hyperlinks to excellent resources. As you are reviewing for this unit, focus on the key concepts!

Unit 3 Summary

⚡ Read: AP Human Geography - Introduction to Culture and watch What is Culture?

The following summary is from AMSCO AP Human Geography:

While some human attributes, such as hair color, are heavily influenced by biological inheritance, most are not. In general, how people think and act is shaped, formally and informally, by what they learn from other people. All of the practices, technologies, attitudes, and behaviors that people learn from others are part of their culture.

Behaviors People Share: Areas where many people share an element of culture--such as speaking a particular language--form cultural regions. Geographers use maps, from small to large scale--to show the boundaries of these regions. When people of different cultures meet, they sometimes have conflicts, but they always adjust to each other. For example, if they speak different languages, one group might learn the other’s language. Or people might blend the two languages to create a new one.

Improvements in transportation and communication have increased the interaction of cultures throughout history. Culture spreads as people move from one place to another and as people interact and learn from each other. In 1500, the region where most people spoke English was a small area on the northwest corner of Europe. Today, English is the dominant language in countries scattered around the world and widely spoken in many others.

Variations in Culture: Geographers use maps to show regions and they use various types of charts and diagrams to show relationships among the elements of culture. For example, a tree diagram can show how several languages, including French and Spanish, are branches that diverge from a common ancestor, Latin.

Unit 3 Essential Questions

How do folk and popular cultures differ in the ways they help form a society’s overall culture?

What do the spread of and changes in languages tell about the cultures of the world?

How do religious and ethnic groups both reflect and influence the geography of places at different scales?

Models to Know from Unit 3

STUDY TIP: The models will appear all over the exam, in both multiple choice and FRQs. You should be able to identify each one from a description or image, apply them to examples, and use them in your writing.

Diffusion S-Curve

Language Tree

⚡ Watch: AP Human Geography - All About Diffusion

Past FRQs from Unit 3

STUDY TIP: Content from the this unit has appeared on the FRQs six times since 2001. Take a look at these questions before you review the key concepts & vocabulary below to get a sense of how you will be assessed. Then, come back to these later and practice writing as many as you can!

2015 - Question 2: English as the world's most important lingua franca

2009 - Question 2: Religion clusters in the United States

2007 - Question 1: Extinct and Revived Languages

2003 - Question 2: Effects of tourism on the Cultural Landscape

2002 - Question 3: Effect of Religion on the Cultural Landscape

Unit 3 Key Concepts & Course Outline

*The following outline was adapted from the AP Human Geography Course Description as published by College Board in 2015 found here. This outline reflects the most recent revisions to the course.

1. Concepts of culture

Traits and complexes
Diffusion
Acculturation
Cultural regions and realms

2. Cultural differences

Language
Religion
Ethnicity
Gender
Popular and folk culture

3. Environmental impact of cultural attitudes and practices

4. Cultural landscapes and cultural identity

Values and preferences
Symbolic landscapes and sense of place

⚡ Watch: AP Human Geography - Religion, Language, Cultural Landscape, and Race & Ethnicity (Part I and Part II)

List of Concepts & Vocabulary from Unit 3

STUDY TIP: These are the concepts and vocabulary from unit 3 that most commonly appear on the exam. Create a Quizlet deck to make sure you are familiar with these terms!