JENNIFER HITCHCOCK: My name is Jennifer Hitchcock,
and I am an AP government teacher at Thomas Jefferson
High School for Science and Technology
in Alexandria, Virginia.
And today, I'm here to talk to you about the first FRQ
that you will see on the exam, the Content Application.
Today, we're going to look at the 2022 exam looking at Ralph
Nader and third parties.
So it's a great time for you to go ahead and grab
paper and pencil for you to follow along and practice as we
go through this FRQ sample.
So like I said, the Concept Application FRQ
is going to be the very first ever queue you'll run across
in your AP exam, and you have 20 minutes
to accomplish this task.
Know that it's worth three points.
There are three points across it.
You have three verbs, task verbs that you have presented.
And so there's specific material you have
to accomplish for each of them.
I would also recommend that, as you're writing,
you use active voice.
And just to reiterate or touch back to your English class,
that's usually when you provide the subject,
like "Congress", and the verb, like "legislated,"
as you are talking about whatever it
is in response to the prompt.
That allows for a very clear understanding
of who is doing what, which is beneficial for all
of your responses across this course.
My other suggestion that I tell my students
is to use proper nouns.
If there's proper nouns in the scenario,
this entire question turns on your ability
to be able to interpret these new scenarios.
So you should reach up there and pull down those proper nouns
to show that you have mastery of the content in the course.
Also remember that we have some verbs here
that are going to direct you to do some content as well.
And I like to go ahead and connect back
to those before I get in the context of the scenario.
So remember, you always have that A point
we have to describe something.
Which means you should identify the actor or the noun,
and you should show through description
in that context, which especially
when we see in the context of the scenario
where you see this material connecting to the prompt.
And we'll see that when we go through our practice questions
today.
The B point is an explain.
And so again, it's probably going
to say in the context of the scenario,
and you're going to want to include those proper nouns
and that active voice.
And when you give evidence showing
where you see things, whether they
be processed oriented with an explain how or explain why,
which has to do with reasoning as to why things are
the way they are, you're going to want
to make sure that you're pulling again from that stimulus
with those proper nouns to see that connection
between your understanding of the content and the stimulus.
And we'll see the same thing in that C point
as well in the context of the scenario.
And then finally, this is a really important thing
to remember.
That the scenario is going to be new to you.
Probably have never heard of the activity or the interaction,
the actors maybe.
But it's not really important that who they are.
It's that you're able to see information and think about how
that connects back to the concepts
that you learned in this course.
So this is a demonstration of I understand
the various components of the AP government class
that are going to be new and novel in situations
in the real world.
And we're doing that because we want
to show that we can understand these concepts
in our contemporary lives as we're reading the news
or watching the news, whatever it might be.
So here's a great opportunity for you to pause your video
and to read the stimulus.
This is an example of from the 2022 exam.
And then we're going to turn and tackle the question.
So pause your video now, and we'll come back around
and give an answer in a second.
Welcome back.
I hope that you have a good mastery
of whatever that content is.
So our first question here is to describe a structural barrier
in the scenario that makes it less likely a third party
candidate will be able to secure enough
popular support to justify including
the candidate in a debate.
Here's where you're going to pause the video again, look
back at the content that we had with the stimulus,
and construct an answer.
And I will show you an exemplar of what
would earn points in a minute.
All right.
Let's take a look at an example of an answer.
This response would earn the point.
And there's a couple of reasons why.
So the first thing cutting back around the idea of our task
verb "describe."
It's a step beyond identify.
Identify means to name something.
And here, we do name something by saying
the winner-take-all-system.
But if we just said the winner-take-all-system,
we wouldn't be describing.
You have to show me that you see that winner-take-all
inside the actual stimulus.
So let's read further ahead to figure out where
that describe point was earned.
And it's here.
So we have our description of a winner-take-all.
They give a definition.
Every party elector wins the most votes of the state.
But we also need to be able to connect it back to where
we see it in the stimulus.
And so they're making this connection to Ralph Nader from
the Green Party we have difficulty winning
because of the winner-take-all-system.
All right, so hopefully that helps.
And that winning popular support because of the winner-take-all
is a nice way of really making sure
that we've described how the winner take
all is that structural barrier to a third party candidate.
Again, not enough to just say it.
But it's the winner-take-all-system.
But we've got to like define it and then show
where we see it in a stimulus, and that's how we accomplish
that describe task.
Here's another example that wouldn't earn a point.
So they're going to start out by repeating the prompt
and saying that it's a structural barrier makes
it less likely a third party candidate would
be able to secure enough popular support.
I'm going to move forward.
And their answer here is "portrayed in the media."
This doesn't earn a point because there's
a actually content disconnect here.
So a structural barrier has to do with a process that's
been established.
We can think of that as a law or some kinds of other process
that can be formalized in law or informal in just protocols
that different people use.
But the media is actually a linkage institution
which is going to connect us and convey our policy interests
to our elected officials.
It's one of four.
So this is a disconnect because it's more of a thing
and not so much a process.
And that's why this would not earn a point.
Now what I can say that also in addition to that that
is a little bit of a problem is that they don't actually
specifically cite anything in the scenario.
So there's two reasons why this wouldn't earn a point.
There's looking for those proper nouns,
they don't see any discussion or reference to Ralph Nader
or to the electoral system or to debates.
That's going to be problematic.
And even just mentioning debates in and of itself
isn't enough, because debates are in the prompt
and you have to show that you understand.
Let's move on to our B point.
Again, here's a great point for you to pause the video
and to write your answer.
All right.
So we are back.
And as we're going through this, again, I'm
going to show you an example of where a point is earned
and where a point is not earned.
And you can grade your assignment
as we go through this.
So I do like the fact that they're repeating the prompt
once again.
That's one of those tricks that I
share with my own students that helps them understand
that sometimes when we read a question really quickly,
we might misinterpret what that question is actually asking us.
And we want to answer that question.
So by repeating that prompt, we're
ensuring that we understand as we move forward
to identifying what our answer is, describing it as evidence
and explaining how that works.
Here, that structural barrier of the winner-take-all
that we referenced in our A point
is going to influence elections because
of the two-party system.
Right.
So the influence that we see of a third party
in the two-party system is that our main parties, Democrats
and Republicans, are oftentimes going to adopt
our third-party platform.
And that's a very specific type of influence.
Right, we've identified it.
Now we need to go on and describe it and show
how this works.
So our description is that the Green Party, in the scenario,
Nader's arguing a lot of positions
which are taken off the table by Republicans and Democrats.
I think that language is a little wishy-washy,
but at least I have an understanding
that the kid sees that there's a transition or a translation
of Nader's platform into the Republican platform.
And so even if that's not clear, we
are going to come back around and say
that the third parties influence this
by adopting third-party policies which the public supports.
And that is that connection of, well, this is how it works.
This is how we're seeing that change.
So again, we're identifying the change.
We're describing it from the scenario,
and then we're showing how that is going to have an impact.
An example that's a non-example of an answer
is they do a lovely job here.
This response has a lovely job of coming back around
to influencing public policy.
That we would see that candidates are maybe
uninformed.
But the biggest issue I see here, once again,
is that there's no specific connection back to our policy.
I would like to see Ralph Nader cited.
I would like to see Green Party cited.
Something where I know that the student is
able to point into that stimulus and say,
this here is where I see this connection.
So they're also a little bit wrong
on the content, which is-- so it's two strikes against them.
So we're going to turn to our C point
now, which is going to look at how third party
candidates in the scenario have a positive impact
on participatory democracy.
And I'm going to give you a hint before you pause the video
and say, think critically about positive impact.
Go ahead and pause your video, and we'll
look at an exemplar in a second
All right.
So grading along, right, we want to show that positive impact.
In this response, they say that the inclusion
of a third-party candidate in Ralph Nader-- so already, we
see them connecting back to our stimulus--
would have a positive impact on participatory democracy.
I'm not even sure at this point that they've
answered the question.
They're just repeating it, just say to themselves
that they understand what the question is.
In the second sentence, they move on
to say that this is because this would show the individuals
the individual citizens that their interests are being
accounted for, and therefore, they are actively
participating in democracy which would
lead to greater political office efficacy and a positive impact
in democracy overall.
It's really here which we're getting
at people deciding to have a change in their behavior.
Right, Nader is doing something that
is enabling individual citizens to be
more likely to do something.
And if we're talking about political efficacy,
what that means is that they're more likely to vote--
right, that's a vocabulary word that we have from the content--
they're more likely to vote, and that has a positive impact.
You could describe political efficacy, too,
if you couldn't pull that vocabulary word
and still earn the points.
Either way, you're showing that you
can read that prompt, that you understand
it's a positive impact, right, and you're showing how,
through connecting to the content in that stimulus,
of how that positive impact benefits democracy overall.
All right.
Again, showing individuals that their interests
are being counted for.
if you just had that response, that wouldn't be enough,
because we're not actually showing
what the result of that positive feeling is, right?
You have to turn the corner and say
they feel good about being a part of democracy,
and therefore, they are more likely to actively participate
in democracy.
So it's resulting in some kind of tangible action.
And therefore, a positive impact.
So this is a great point.
And that is it.
I mean, we went to this entire if FRQ here.
I hope that helps.
Again, we went and reviewed what our task verbs mean.
We looked at an example from the 22 exam
and looked for some good examples and some bad examples
of how to accomplish the task before you in that CA FRQ.
Good luck this year on your exams,
and we'll see you again really soon.