The Ultimate AP Human Geography Study Guide

The Ultimate AP Human Geography Study Guide SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips In your AP Human Geography class, you'll learn about the dynamics of societies around the world in economic, social, political, and environmental contexts. This course focuses a lot on ideas and models, along with terminology that defines the ways in which we've chosen to inhabit and change our surroundings. The following AP Human Geography study guide is designed to guide you through all the concepts covered in the course, with an emphasis on cumulative preparation for the AP exam. What Will You Get From This AP Human Geography Study Guide? This guide will help you review for assessments in your AP Human Geography class by providing links to practice resources and tips on effective study strategies. I'll also give advice that's specific to preparing for the final AP exam. In the first section, I’ll detail a step-by-step process you can follow to create and execute a customized study plan for the test.This process includes taking a diagnostic test, evaluating your weaknesses, studying the content areas where you struggled the most, and taking additional practice tests to check your progress. To follow up the study plan, I’ll list a few key study tips to remember as you revisit the course content and take practice exams.I’ll also give you notes for each topic area that you can use to study for in-class tests and review for the AP exam. Having all this information in one place will hopefully make studying for this class much less stressful! Creating a Study Plan for AP Human Geography In this section, I'll go through the steps of a basic study plan for the AP exam. Most of the principles will also apply to your studying for tests throughout the class, but full practice tests are only important when directly preparing for the final exam. You can use shorter topic-specific quizzes to diagnose your weaknesses in different units of the course earlier in the school year. Step 1: Take and Score a Full Practice Test The first step is to take a full practice test so you can get a better idea of your current score level.When you take the test, time it to the specifications of the real AP exam so that you’ll be able to tell if you have any issues with time management. Keep in mind that on the AP test, you only have an hour to answer 75 multiple-choice questions.To be on the safe side, you should try to get your time down to around 30 seconds per question.The only way to get used to this pace is to take practice tests under the same conditions. You might consider usingthis full practice test from Barron’s, which offers both timed and untimed versions with automatic scoring for multiple choice.As you take your practice test, circle or make note of any questions where you feel anything less than totally confident in your answer. Even if you end up getting them right, you should reexamine that content later in your review to increase your comfort level with the material. When you're done, score your test so you can see where you fall in the AP range. You can use this online calculatorfor a decent score estimation based on how many raw points you earned.Then, set a goal for improvement, and decide how many hours you’ll need to put into your prep.If you have a couple of months, you should be able to put in 20+ hours of study time.This will be an appropriate amount studying if you’re hoping to improve by more than one AP point.If you only need to improve by one point or are just looking to raise your score within the same range, you might be able to wait until the month before the test to start the rest of the process. You shouldn’t need to study for more than 10-20 hours. Step 2: Go Through Your Mistakes If you decide to begin the rest of this process now, go through your mistakes on the practice test, and categorize them.This is how you’ll decide which content and skill areas to focus on in your review.There’s no point in studying concepts and terms that you’ve already mastered.If you want to see real improvements, this is the most important stage of the study process.You can’t fix your mistakes unless you know what they are first! Step 3: Study Appropriate Content After you finish analyzing your mistakes, start looking at notes that correspond to the areas where you had the most trouble on the test.Make sure you’re fully absorbing the information as you read.In this case, flashcards might be useful because there are so many terms to remember for AP Human Geography.If you found the free response questions especially challenging, practice a few more of those before you move on to the next step.You can also use some of the sites I’ll link to later in this article to review specific topics with short multiple-choice quizzes. Step 4: Take a Second Full Practice Test When you feel that you’ve fully addressed all of your mistakes on the first test, you can take a second test to see if your scores have improved. Compare your new score to the goal you set in the first step, and decide whether you want to go through the study process again or are happy with your current score. If you're satisfied, you can take a break and just do a bit of light review up until the test. If you find that you haven’t improved, you should reevaluate how you conducted this process and make some changes to your strategy in the next round.Were you in an environment that was too distracting? Did you skim over our notes without really absorbing them? These are the kinds of things that can cause your progress to stall. For planning purposes, here’s the estimated time required for each of the steps in the process for this exam: Step 1: 2.5 hours Step 2: 1 hour Step 3: 2 hours Step 4: 2.5 hours It should take approximately eight hours total for a complete cycle. Of course, you can always extend the time you spend reviewing content if you’re rusty on a bunch of different topics or just want to be extra thorough. Clean off that rust with an acidic solution of facts. AP Human Geography Study Tips These are a few of the most valuable strategies to keep in mind as you go through your study plan to prepare for the AP exam.They should also be helpful in your preparation for smaller assessments throughout the school year in your class. Tip #1: Know Your Regions To get full credit for most free response questions, you have to provide specific examples to support your answers.That means being able to identify the characteristics of world regions regarding their various cultures, demographics, and physical environments.You’ll see a map of the major regions covered by AP Human Geography in the content section of this guide along with a list of seven topics.You should be able to locate each region and identify the relationship it has with each of the seven topic areas. Tip #2: Terms, Terms, Terms Although knowing your way around a map is important, much of AP Human Geography is about your knowledge of terminology.I’d highly recommend making flashcards or using online flashcards in your studying (I'll put a link to some of these in the upcoming content section!).Many multiple-choice questions are essentially just asking for definitions, and some free response questions begin by asking you to define a term that the rest of the question addresses in more depth. Even if it's not this direct, knowing your way around the language of the field of geography will make it much easier to understand questions without relying on shaky assumptions or inferences. Tip #3: Pay Attention to Important Models and Theories Human Geography is mostly considered a humanities subject, but there are some scientific elements to it. These show up in the form of demographic models that are introduced throughout the course. It's important to know how to read models and understand what they represent. You should also know how they connect to major theories in human geography and what those theories say about the development of society. I'll give you a link to a comprehensive list of models and theories at the end of the next section. Skylar, how many times do I have to explain homophones to you? YOU'RE. NOT. HELPING. AP Human GeographyTopics and Notes AP Human Geography covers seven major topic areas. In this section,I’ll list each of them followed by notes that cover relevant subtopics. You can use these notes in the content review stage of your final AP study process and during the year as you review for in-class tests.You might find these notes (from CourseNotes) difficult to get through because they’re written in such a way that it’s hard to pick out key concepts. There are a lot of long paragraphs with no bolding of important terms.If you find these notes borderline incomprehensible, you should try getting a review book that puts all the content in clearer terms. I thinkCracking the AP Human Geography Exam is a good starting point. As a precursor to the notes, here's a map of all the world regions that are discussed throughout the course. You'll need to consider how these topics apply differently to varying locations around the globe: Topic #1: Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives Geography and Human Geography Topic #2: Population The Earth As Humanity’s Home Fundamentals of Population: Location, Distribution, and Density Processes and Cycles of Population Change Where and Why People Move Topic #3: Cultural Patterns and Processes Cultures, Environments, and Regions A Geography of Languages Diffusion of Languages Modern Language Mosaics Origins and Distribution of Religions Religion: Location, Diffusion, and Cultural Landscape Religion, Culture, and Conflict Topic #4: Political Organization of Space Political Culture and the Evolving State State Organization and National Power Multinationalism on the Map The Changing Global Political Landscape Topic #5: Agricultural and Rural Land Use The Livelihoods of Rural Peoples Rural Settlement Forms Commercial Agriculture Global Disparities in Nutrition and Health Topic #6: Industrialization and Economic Development Industrial Activity and Geographic Location Resources and Regions: The Global Distribution of Industry Concepts of Development From Deindustrialization to Globalization Topic #7: Cities and Urban Land Use Civilization and Urbanization Urbanization and Location Urban Pattern and Structure Changing Civic Experiences Since terms are so important on the exam, I’d also recommend checking out this full list of all vocab covered by the course (provided by Quizlet) so that you can review all the vocabulary you need to know in one place. You should also check out this overview of all the different theories and models covered throughout the course. When lots of humans get together to form an urban community, they can't help but color on everything. What an adorable species. Resources for Reviewing Content In this section, I’ll go over a few different resources that you can use to test your knowledge of the content and take practice tests and quizzes. Review Books Review books are helpful resources that provide access to additional practice questions and tests.They often include diagnostic tests that will help you diagnose your weak areas accurately and with less legwork on your part.Especially in a subject like Human Geography that can be a little elusive, review books will help you figure out exactly what you need to study and how you should study it.Read my guide to the best review books for this course to get a better idea of which ones you should consider getting.Some solid review books include: Cracking the AP Human Geography Exam (Princeton Review) Barron’s AP Human Geography AP Human Geography Crash Course (REA) Official Free Response Questions (2001-2015) This includes all the free response questions that have been asked on the AP Human Geography exam since 2001.Be aware that the scoring guidelines are only included for 2004 onwards, so the first three sets of questions for 2001-2003 don’t have official answers that you can consult. Sporcle Geography Quizzes As I mentioned in the tips section, it's important to know your world regions for AP Human Geography so you can back up your answers with specific examples.You don’t need to be a complete expert on where every country is located, but these quizzes are both fun AND educational, so I’d recommend checking them out (warning: super addictive). Countries of the World Countries of Asia Countries of Europe Countries of Africa Countries of South America Countries of North America Varsity Tutors Diagnostic Tests This site offers four diagnostic tests for AP Human Geography with 75 questions each (multiple-choice only).The tests have automatic scoring, and each is given a preliminary difficulty level rating.There are also tons of mini-quizzes listed by concept if you want to practice topic-specific questions as well as flashcards that will help you learn all the course terminology. Learnerator Practice Quizzes There are quizzes on every topic with questions categorized by difficulty level. Quizzes range in length from 10-40 questions, and the site keeps a running tally of how many questions you’ve answered correctly in each category (easy, medium, and hard). Unfortunately, you do need to pay for access to the quiz questions in the "hard" category.It’s $25 to get full access to all the AP Human Geography questions, including a bunch of free response practice. Chapter Quizzes for Human Geography: Landscapes of Human Activities (11th Edition) If you select a chapter of this book on the left-hand navigation bar, you can scroll down and click on a link for a multiple choice quiz.These quizzes are helpful review materials even if your class isn’t using this particular textbook. Now, sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor in the form of an A and/or 5. Conclusion This AP Human Geography study guide has covered a review plan for the AP test, tips for success in studying throughout the year, and a list of all the topics included in the AP Human Geography curriculum. Let's recap!The steps in a successful study plan should look something like this: Step 1: Take and Score a Practice Test Step 2: Go Through Your Mistakes Step 3: Study Appropriate Content Step 4: Take a Second Practice Test Again, you can go through this process multiple times if you don't get the results you want in the first round. Just pay close attention to whether or not you're improving. If not, make changes to amp up the effectiveness of your content review. Some study tips you should keep in mind as you study for both the AP test and in-class assessments include: Tip #1: Know Your World Regions Tip #2: Terms Are Important Tip #3: Pay Attention to Major Geographic Models and Theories After you're clear on the fundamentals of how to study, you can use the notes and practice resources in the second half of the article to prepare for unit quizzes, midterms, and the final AP test. What's Next? Are you thinking about self-studying this class or other AP classes? Find out more about whether AP self-study is right for your situation and which classes are the most manageable options. If you're still planning out your schedule for the future, check out our article on which other history classes you should takeafter AP Human Geography. You might also be interested in these articles that discussAP credit policies at colleges and which classes you should takethroughout the rest of your time in high school based on your college goals. 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