SUZANNE BAILEY: Hello.
Are you looking for some help in practicing
the conceptual analysis free response
question for the AP Comparative Government and Politics exam?
Well, you're at the right place.
My name is Suzanne Bailey, and I teach this course
at Virgil Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama.
And I've been a comparative reader for over 20 years.
So I've developed a number of strategies
to help teach my students how to master
this particular type of question,
and I'd like to share them with you.
You will be able to download a PDF of this practice question
that I'm about to show you.
But first, what we want to do is,
let's go through some of these strategies.
So if you're ready, I am.
Let's go.
First of all the conceptual analysis
question is going to be the first question
that you see when they hand out your test books, right.
So that first question that you're going to see
is going to be conceptual analysis.
And it's the shortest one.
And it's the fewest number of points,
which you'll notice here I'm using a question
from last year's exam.
And so there's four points, four rubric points that you will do.
And the first thing you will notice
is that there's no specific country information required.
This is really about concepts and concepts
are so important in both multiple choice
and free response.
And so this is a great warm-up for you to get--
start your writing and thinking about just the concepts.
I think in terms of strategies, the most important thing
is to treat each of these as separate points.
You really want to talk about A, skip a line, do B, skip a line,
do C. Like think about these as complete answers.
And so that's how I'm going to approach this video.
I'm going to go through each of these differently.
But first, just collectively, first strategy
I have is circle the task verbs.
Understand as a reader, that's what I'm looking for.
The level of information, or mastery,
or the skill that I'm asking you to do
or that I'm looking for evidence of in my writing
needs to be based on these task verbs.
So that's an important thing to look at.
So let's go through each of these task verbs separately.
A, is always going to be or it has been to this point a
"define" or "describe."
So that's a precise skill.
It's much more than identify.
So notice this isn't asking you just
to identify a socialist policy, it's
asking to describe a socialist policy.
So you need to be making kind of a visual picture
with your words, it needs to be more than an identification.
So notice though, you've almost-- you've
got two different concepts here.
You have socialist policy and income inequality.
And so when we look or what I train with my students
is I think the best way to know how
to do these is to think like a reader.
And so what I want to do throughout this video
is show you some examples and help you,
help me make the decision, see the process I'm
going through when I see it.
So this is one student's response from last year.
"Socialist policy used by governments
to address income inequality is to privatize industries."
So what do you think?
I wouldn't give it a point, right.
I have a lot of questions here.
The main one being is, how would privatization of industries
address income inequality?
The other problem with this is socialism
is about more government control,
right to assure equality.
And so I'm more likely to see socialist possibly
it would be about nationalizing industries,
not privatizing them.
So let's try another sample.
"A socialist policy used by governments
to address income inequality is greater taxation
of upper class citizens--" So there is an accurate policy.
"--to balance out everyone's net yearly income.
Right, that would get the point because they are actually
focused here on income inequality.
So I have an accurate socialist policy,
and I have how it addresses income inequality.
By both of those things, I need to see both of those things
in order to earn one point.
So really pay attention to the prompt.
So I think that one of the other things to look at here
is that they use the words in the prompt.
That is going to be the best way to make sure
that you answer that question.
Notice though B, ups the level of difficulty.
You're now at an "explain how."
And not only explain how, it's explaining
how these two concepts differ from each other.
So as a reader, I'm looking for an explanation, but also
an explicit comparison between the two.
So let's look at one student response.
"Political ideology is about ideas,
whereas, political culture is about culture."
Well, this certainly was a comparison.
The problem is they made the fatal mistake, right,
when you're trying to do this, which
is using the term that you're trying to define, right.
This is something you know is just good definition process is
to think of synonyms, right.
So when you're studying these concepts,
you should be thinking of some synonyms as well
as more specific answers.
Like these-- someone who hadn't even studied
it could come up with a sentence like that.
So let's be a little bit more--
let's try a better answer.
So notice here, to me, these are two straight definitions
of political culture.
"--widely shared beliefs about how citizens relate
to the government.
And political ideology is about a particular set
of ideas about the role of government," right.
One is a more group, one is a more collective.
And so this is going to get the point because you've
got two accurate definitions here
with an explicit comparison word.
All right.
So notice they didn't ask you to define political ideology
and define political culture.
They asked you to say how they are different.
So you need a comparison word in there.
And both of these are about government, right,
which is the political aspect.
And so this would earn the point.
C, is a little bit more challenging, right.
So what you notice here is you're
continuing to do this issue about socialist policies,
but in this case, you're talking about how
socialist policies might affect economic development.
So notice you've got a whole new concept in here
that you have to talk about.
The important thing here with the word "effects"
is that it could both help or hinder the process.
So one of the things as a reader,
I'm looking for is a direction.
Is it going to help economic development,
or is it going to hinder?
So let's see what the student responded.
"Socialist policies may alter the state
of the economy due to the nature of the transition
away from a privatized economy to one that is nationalized."
So what do you think?
The challenge here, though, is that what I really
need is this time-- like this first sentence
would not be enough, right.
I need then to talk about how a nationalization of an industry
would lead to economic growth, right.
Economic development, a synonym for economic development
is economic growth.
The economy is providing more output and more jobs
and opportunities for people.
And so that first sentence would not be enough.
It's a correct socialist policy, now
I need to tie it to economic development.
Finally, this last one.
What's interesting about the fourth one
is they're going to take something
about in this case, socialism and have
it tied to another concept, in this case, legitimacy.
So notice again, they're using that word effects.
So as a reader, I'm looking for a direction.
Is it going to affect it positively or negatively?
The other hand, I like to use with students is the word
"because."
"Explain" means to tell me how or why, that's
to use reasoning.
So you can use any reasoning verb or a signal to the reader,
but "because" is a good one to make sure that you're doing.
So in this case, I'm looking for implementation,
socialist policy.
So that would be an executive function, right, implementation
as well as legitimacy.
So let's see about this one.
"Since a government's legitimacy often
comes from public opinion, it may be positively
or negatively affected by the effects
of the socialist policies."
So keep in mind, this person hasn't given me a trend yet.
This would not be enough.
What I need is to pick a side, right.
Like this is about effects, is it direction?
So in this case, right, increase taxation,
that's your socialist policy.
People may feel that incomes are more equal.
So the government will experience
high level of legitimacy because the people
support their policy, right.
I need both of these sentences to get to the "explain"
to close that loop.
So the socialist policy is here, increase taxation
on the wealthy.
Implementation, right, people may
feel that their incomes are more equal.
Legitimacy, in particular that the people
will support the policy.
Legitimacy is that people accept authority.
So this is the most difficult one, so just be ready for that.
Realize I need to see indication of all the concepts
that are in that question.
In general, just as a checklist.
The first of all, read the question completely.
Look for that scaffolding of A, B and C,
and escalating of the question.
And then look for that outside concept
that's being introduced in D.
Annotate the questions.
Circle those task verbs.
Underline the concepts.
Use the prompt to help you make sure you're doing your answer.
Really be sure to thoroughly answer
each section of the question.
A, B, and C, and D are graded separately.
So make sure that--
feel free to even skip a line between them,
make sure that you're completely answering that question.
You can add country specific information, if you have time.
I think it really helps you when you're trying
to think about an explanation.
But you don't have to, right.
And you only have 10 minutes.
So you want to be careful with that.
And then finally, you can see to be successful in this question,
you have to know a lot of concepts.
You need to be able to recognize them, which
means you need to practice.
You're going to see this concept--
defining concepts in all four free responses.
So you want to practice.
Thank you again for joining me today.
Hopefully this was helpful and you some strategies
on answering conceptual analysis.
My best advice to you is to practice
writing these types of free responses, so that on exam day,
it'll be rote.
You'll know what you're doing.
And good luck on that exam.