Hi everyone, welcome to AP Daily practice session.
My name is Stephanie Cosgrove.
I'm a teacher at Coral Gables Senior High
School in Miami, Florida.
And today, we're going to be looking
at FRQs that have a stimulus.
So before we start, I'm going to just give you
some helpful tips that will maybe assist you
in writing your FRQs.
So the first thing that you really need to do,
we need to read that entire prompt,
and read it again, and really understand
what it's asking us to do.
And then, if you have a stimulus, which
we will see in this session, you are
going to look at it carefully to understand
how it's related to the prompt.
And it might be an image, or a data table, or a graph.
But we're going to really pay attention to that stimulus
and see how it's tying in with our prompt.
We are going to notice our task verbs.
What are they asking you to do?
Super important.
And then, when you begin answering the prompt,
label your answers.
That helps you, and it helps you stay organized.
And it also helps the person who's
going to be scoring your response.
It will help them see what you're responding to.
So we are going to label our answers.
And finally, you're going to write in complete sentences.
There are no bullet points on the AP exam.
You are going to write in complete sentences.
And of course, you're going to print nicely and neatly.
So just as a quick reminder, I want
to make sure we know what our task verbs are.
And you can see them here, we've got our define,
and identify, describe, explain, and compare.
And we are going to answer them pretty differently.
So define, that's it, self explanatory, give a definition.
Identify is going to be one short, quick sentence.
But our describe, and explain, and compare
are a bit more complex.
And so you want to make sure that you are-- if you're
describing something, you're talking about some
of the characteristics, you might
want to give evidence or examples and explain.
And compare, you want to make sure you're
talking about both sides.
And so we'll see some of those during the session, of how we
should be responding to this.
Your task verbs, you may see them asking you to do things
like explain the limitation, explain the degree,
describe the differences.
So explaining the limitation, this is an easy one.
How does it not fit?
How is it not working?
How is that map or graph not working to explain something?
So, explain the degree, this is a measure.
Is it high, is it low, is it moderate?
And we want to make sure that we're going to say,
it's a high degree or it's a low degree.
And then, we are going to explain why,
and give some examples, and give some evidence.
And finally, the describe the differences,
that's just like a compare.
You want to make sure that you're giving both sides,
or it could be describe the similarities.
So it's not a big deal.
You can do it, and you're going to be great.
So let's jump right in and get some FRQ,
fun with our FRQs going.
So here we have a graph of several countries.
And it shows forest cover as a percent of total land area,
from 1990 to 2015, in selected countries around the world.
And you can see here, the countries.
And you see, it's from 1990 to 2015.
So our first prompt, our A prompt
is describe one reason a country's percent of forest
cover may change.
So we've got to think, why would a country's forest cover
change?
So you can pause me and try to write the response.
And see if what you have is comparable to what I have.
So, remember, we're going to describe, not identify,
describe.
So here, we have a potential response.
A country's forest cover may decrease
for a number of reasons.
One reason for deforestation is that forests
may be cleared for agricultural practices,
like farming, ranching, mining, such as what has happened
in the Amazon region of Brazil.
In Indonesia, clearing forests for palm oil plantations
has caused deforestation.
So we have given a reason of why forest covers change.
And we're talking about deforestation.
And we're also giving an example,
from Brazil or in Indonesia.
So let's take that same stimulus and look at a B point.
And so, with our B point, it's asking
us to use the data shown in the graph,
compare the trends in forest cover change between more
developed countries and less developed countries,
from 1990 to 2015?
We're going to use the data.
We are going to compare the trends in forest cover
percent between more developed countries and less
developed countries, between the years of 1990 and 2015.
So why don't you pause me and try to come up
with a response to that.
And then, come back, unpause me, and we'll
see if what you have is similar to what I have.
Remember, you're going to use the data,
compare the trends in more developed and less developed
countries.
So, I'm going to look at Honduras.
It's the first less developed country on the list.
And then, we are going to look at Japan, our first more
developed country on the list.
And we're going to look at what our graph is showing.
And it's showing some pretty dramatic decline in Honduras
for the percent of change.
And Japan is looking pretty stable.
It looks like there's almost 0% change.
So here is what a sample response could look like.
The data shows less developed countries, such as Honduras,
Indonesia, and Brazil, have seen a decrease in forest cover.
For example, the graph indicates that Honduras
has seen approximately 30% decrease in forest cover
from 1990 to 2015.
On the other hand, the more developed countries
in the graph have remained relatively stable.
Japan, for example, has had 0% change in forest cover
from 1990 to 2015.
So, we just did everything that we were asked to do.
We talked about the data in the table.
We used something pretty specific, the 30% decrease.
And we have compared the more developed and the less
developed countries.
So, that is our B point.
Let's look at something maybe a little bit more challenging.
And this is the explain the degree.
And here we have explain the degree to which Wallerstein's
world systems theory explains changes
in the pattern of forest cover since 1990.
So remember, we're going to have to take a side.
Is it a high degree, is it a low degree?
So go ahead and write a response, and then come back
and see if what you have is similar to what I have.
Remember, you're going to explain the degree.
And we're talking about Wallerstein's world systems
theory.
And so what I have is the degree to which Wallerstein's world
systems theory explains changes in forest cover since 1990
is high.
So right there, I'm taking a side.
It is a high degree.
Wallerstein's theory says that peripheral and semi-peripheral
countries, such as Honduras, Brazil, and Indonesia,
will extract and process their resources, their raw materials,
like timber, to support core countries, such as Germany,
the US, and Japan.
This explains why Honduras, Brazil, and Indonesia
are decreasing forest cover, while Germany,
the US, and Japan are not.
So I wrote high degree, and I am giving an explanation.
If you wanted to do the other side,
a low degree, then here's a sample
of how you can have a low degree.
So we're still explaining the degree.
And here, we have a different type of response.
The degree to which Wallerstein's world systems
theory explains the changes of forest cover since 1990 is low.
Wallerstein's theory doesn't take into account
that there are international agreements in developing
countries, such as the debt for nature agreements in Brazil,
Indonesia, and the Philippines, which
help protect our rainforests and forest cover.
So, that's the other side.
A low degree, and then I gave an explanation why.
So remember, when you do an explain the degree,
you want to make sure that you are giving that explanation.
So, let's look at a different type of stimulus,
going back to a table.
And here is a table on urbanization indicators
in selected countries.
We see the different countries, from Afghanistan, Germany,
Bangladesh, Vietnam.
And then, we see their percent of population that's urban.
We can see the percent of the urban population
with safe drinking water, and access to electricity,
and some other things.
So let's look at the A point.
Using numerical data to support your answer,
identify the least urbanized country in the table shown.
This is an easy one.
This is an identify.
But, we're going to use data to support that answer.
So all you have to do is go to the graph
and determine which country is least urbanized.
And then, we're going to use numerical data to support it.
So, here we have, according to the data table,
Afghanistan is the least urbanized,
with 25% being urban.
And we're just getting that right out of the data table.
So that is how you could respond to an identify.
You can't just say Afghanistan.
It has to be a little bit more than that.
Let's look at another prompt.
Explain a limitation of the data shown in the table
in illustrating challenges to urban sustainability.
Why don't you pause it, and then come back,
and maybe see if you have something
similar to what I have.
So remember, you're going to explain
a limitation of the data in illustrating challenges
to urban sustainability.
So we have, a limitation of the data table
is that it doesn't show any components
of environmental sustainability.
It is failing to show the increased use of cars
and whether or not it's causing an increase in air pollution.
These are all challenges to urban sustainability.
It doesn't show environmental impacts
of urban sprawl or the sanitation problems
that sprawl can cause.
Nor does it show environmental impacts
that large urban areas can have on things like water quality.
So, when it's asking you a limitation,
remember, it's asking you, how does it not work?
So I think we did a pretty good job in answering that B point.
And we covered all of the different things
that we should have covered.
We gave some examples.
So, we've looked at several different types of FRQs
and the responses, the prompts and the responses.
We have read the entire prompts.
We're really figuring out what it's asking us to do.
Remember, when you have a stimulus,
you're going to look at it carefully so that you
make sure that you understand how
it's tying into your prompt.
You're going to really pay attention to that task verb.
What is it asking you to do?
We are also going to label our answers.
If you noticed, I failed to label the answers
in those last couple of responses.
But you're not going to do that.
We're going to label our answers.
And we're going to write in complete sentences
and print neatly.
So don't forget, we have five task verbs.
We've got our define.
We have our identify.
We have describe.
We have explain.
And we have compare.
And sometimes, those task verbs are
going to ask us to do a little bit more,
like explain the limitation, or explain the degree,
or describe the differences or similarities.
So, you can do it, it's not a big deal.
You are going to be amazing.
Good luck on your AP exam.
And I hope that this helps.
Thank you so much.