MASON LOGEROT: Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to AP Daily.
My name is still Mason Logerot, and I'm still
coming to you from Pflugerville, Texas in the Austin area
where I teach at Pflugerville High School.
Go Panthers.
And, today, we're going to look at the short-answer questions
and figure out how do you answer the short-answer questions.
So before we get to the questions, a couple of basics
that we need to run through and make sure
you're clear on what you need to do on the AP test.
You're going to be answering three short-answer questions.
Each one has three parts, an A, B, C.
So essentially you're doing 9 questions,
and you have 40 minutes to do them.
So your first thought is, well, that gives me
about 4 and 1/2 minutes per question.
But be careful thinking about that
because the first two questions are
going to take you a little bit more time.
Question 1 is going to be having a secondary source
that you have to analyze.
Question 2 will have a primary source.
We are not going to cover those in this video.
But Amy is going to cover those in later videos.
So check out hers if you want to know
how to look at secondary and primary sources
and how to analyze those in a short answer.
What I'm going to focus on today are the questions
that don't have a stimulus.
So on the AP test, you're going to have
question 3 and question 4.
You're going to pick one of those.
So the good news is if you see one and you're like, ooh,
I don't remember anything about this topic, that's fine.
You've got the other one to choose from.
And by the way, just a quick aside here,
you can't do part A from question 3
and then like B and C from 4, no doing that.
Either answer question 3 or you do question 4.
But the thing I really want to focus on today
is the verb in the question, especially when you see
identify or you see explain.
If the question asks you to identify
an example of whatever, then all you have to do is identify.
That's it.
I always tell my students--
I'm going to tell y'all as well--
if it's an identify question, give a little bit
of explanation just to make sure that you fully
answered the question.
But don't feel like you need to give
this huge, long, run-on paragraph if it's just
asking you to identify.
If it's asking you to explain, then you
need to give a how or a why as part of your answer.
But, again, it doesn't take a long explanation.
But make sure you have a how or a why in your explain
answer if it's asking you to explain.
Because the big thing here, y'all, is that time is going
to be an issue.
When I talk to my students in the past years,
they've always said they felt really rushed
in the short-answer part.
Time is going to be an issue.
And space on the paper is an issue as well.
Because, remember, you get a box that's
about the size of 8 and 1/2 by 11 paper.
And you've got to fit A, B, and C all inside that box.
Because I don't know if y'all know this,
but after you take the test, the College Board scans
in your responses.
And the readers that grade your test only
see the scanned image on their computer.
They don't see your whole paper.
So you need to make sure your answers stay inside that box.
So space could be a little bit of an issue as well.
But the biggest thing, y'all answer the question.
And I know that's simplistic.
And I know you're kind of rolling your eyes.
But I'm telling you, I've seen a lot of students
before who just talk about something that's
sort of about the question but never actually answer
the question themselves.
Answer the question.
So let's look at a couple of examples.
And, actually, in the description of this video,
there is a link to a PDF that has these questions on there.
So what I'm going to suggest is that you open up that PDF.
And if you want to answer those questions
right now before we go over the answers,
I think that'd be great.
You can pause the video, go do the work on your own,
and come back.
Or if you just want me to give you the answers,
that's fine as well.
I'm about to do that.
But keep that PDF open next to you
so you can refer back to it as you're watching the video.
So here's question 1.
Let's go ahead and take a look at part A.
So here we have to identify a way in which the spread
of Buddhism, not Buddhism itself,
but the spread of Buddhism-- that's important here--
in the period before 14500 so we need
to think about our time period here.
And when you think about how it's a continuity.
Spread of Buddhism before 1450, how
is it a continuity in patterns of cultural diffusion?
Notice that this question does not have a particular region.
We could talk about Buddhism in East Asia.
We could talk about in South Asia, Southeast Asia.
Also, it doesn't say what type of cultural diffusion.
So this actually gives us a lot of leeway here.
There's a lot of possible answers that we could go with.
So if I'm a student and I'm trying to answer this question,
I'm going to start brainstorming and thinking
about how religions spread.
So we know that they spread through trade routes.
We've seen examples of that on the Silk
Road and the Indian Ocean, across the Sahara Desert.
We know that religions are going to spread
through the work of missionaries who are trying to convert
others to their religion.
We know that political leaders if they
support a particular religion and are
willing to give money and aid to that,
we'll see the spread of it.
And we also know that religions can change and adapt
when they come in contact with other culture
or other religious traditions.
So now let's take what we know about all of this
and turn it into an answer for the question.
And what I would do is I would talk especially about merchants
and commercial activity, especially
on the Silk Road, that plays a huge role in spreading
Buddhism, especially from South Asia to East Asia
just like we see Christianity and Islam spreading
through the work of merchants as well.
So notice I identified, and I gave
a little bit of description.
But just make sure you identify and have answered
the question about continuity and patterns
of cultural diffusion.
All right, part B, spread of Buddhism
changing other Asian religious traditions.
And this time we had to explain it.
So we've got to give our how or why.
So if I'm thinking about other Asian religions,
there's a lot that we can choose from here.
Islam would be a major one.
Hinduism would be a big one.
If you want to think about East Asia,
Confucianism and Taoism would also work as well.
But I need to think about how Buddhism changed one of those.
Well, if I'm thinking about the spread of Buddhism
into East Asia, I'm really thinking
about Confucianism and especially Neo-Confucianism.
So here I have how Confucianism is
changing in response to Buddhism because of Neo-Confucianism.
And I'm giving the how or the why too, saying it
adopted many Buddhist ideas and began
to focus on metaphysical ideas of Confucianism.
That's how Confucianism changed in response to Buddhism.
So notice there's an explain part there
because I did give the ow or the why to it.
And then our last question for this part--
one way in which Buddhism changed as it
spread across Asia.
And, again, we got to think about the change here.
So let's think about religions, in general.
How do they change as they spread?
Well, we know that, of course, they
interact with other religions.
So you have changes there.
Sometimes you have syncretic blending of religions.
You see changes in political leadership.
If you move to a new state or an empire, new type of leadership.
You can see religions changing that way or, as always,
interacting with a new culture as well.
But we really need to think specifically about Buddhism.
So let's think about Buddhism and the idea of the Dao
and adopting Daoist ideas.
Because that's a way that we see Buddhism changing, especially
as it reaches East Asia and interacts
with Daoist ideas and principles.
Let's look at the next one here.
Enter all the parts of the question that follow.
So I'm looking here.
And you notice these are all about political systems
in China.
And notice they're all 1200 to 1750.
So start remembering what you know
about Chinese political systems from 1200 to 1750.
And our first question here is asking
about continuity in political systems from 1200 to 1750.
So that's a long time period.
What do I remember about Chinese political systems in that time?
And the good news is there is a lot
that you can choose from in this particular question.
I mean, you've got all those major Chinese dynasties
that you've studied.
You could think about China's relationship
to other states and empires in East Asia, especially the idea
of trade and tribute where other countries are giving gifts
to Chinese leaders.
Chinese leaders are giving gifts to other leaders.
You could think about European merchants and the restrictions
that were placed on them when you first
start seeing European merchants into East Asia during this time
period.
Of course, Confucianism always plays a big role
in political systems in China, we
know that, especially through those civil service exams
and the establishment of a very organized bureaucracy
that we see throughout China in this time period.
So there's a lot that you could go with here.
But if I was you, I'm going to keep it simple
and just say, look, Chinese government depended
on Confucianist principles because that's definitely
a continuity we see pretty much through that entire time
period.
Now if you wanted to add a little bit about civil service
exams and how students were asked about Confucianist
principles and that's how the Chinese government depended
on Confucianist principles, that would be totally fine.
There's nothing wrong with adding a little bit more.
But this is enough for an identify type of question.
So we did a continuity.
Now we're being asked about a change.
And with the same time period, 1200 to 1750.
So let's think back to what we remember
about our Chinese political systems,
and think about a change this time.
Well, there were a lot of different dynasties,
we know that.
We know that the Mongols actually
created one of those dynasties in this time period.
Could I mention the opium wars?
Nope, nope, nope, I cannot because that was after 1750.
Y'all remember make sure you've got a timeline of those major
events in your head.
You don't need to know exact years.
But you need to know the opium wars were after 1750
because they were in the 1800s.
So if I'm going to come up with an answer for this one,
I'm going to talk about the end of the Mongols in China
and talk about the establishment of the Ming dynasty.
Again, that's a pretty simple one
that would work well for this question
because it's asking us just to identify the change.
Now on part C, we get to an explain question.
And we're going back to our political continuities.
But this time we're thinking about the global economy.
This actually works out well because in part A,
you came up with a bunch of possibilities
for political continuities.
So you can use some of those answers.
As long as you apply it to the global economy, you're good.
Well if you think global economy,
think long distance trade.
And I know you've learned a lot about long distance trade
this year, especially in Asia and especially involving China.
So if we're going to turn this into an answer,
why don't we talk about the fact that the Chinese government,
even though they went through several dynasties,
it's been relatively stable in this time period.
And we know that when there's stable governments,
you're going to see more long distance trade,
and especially you're going to see a market
and production of luxury items.
If things are stable, the economy is stable,
people are going to look for luxury items.
If there was a lot of war, if there was a lot of unrest,
then, yeah, we're going to see a decline in long distance trade.
But we really don't see that through this period of China
if you think about it as one large time period.
So our main takeaways and tips here.
First off, between question 3 and 4,
you're going to have a choice.
So pick the one that you feel most comfortable with.
Pay very special attention to the verb.
Its identify, just identify.
Its explain, give a how or why with it.
And get to the point, answer them quick.
And also, like I said, a lot of times the questions will
be a little bit related.
So see if some of the other parts
can help you answer another part,
but just make sure that you are fully answering that part.
All right, thank you so much for watching.