Study past AP Human Geography FRQs with these 2016 exam practice questions and detailed answers. This guide helps you understand FRQ format and scoring.
Q: Subsistence agriculture is most common in which of the following regions?
Answer: C. Amazon Basin
Q: Historically, Iceland had only one period of human migration. The country has never been invaded and possesses a common culture and language. As a result, Iceland is regarded as a good example of which of the following concepts?
Answer: D. Nation-state
Q: Which of the following defines Chicago’s position in relation to the infrastructure of the United States?
Answer: B. Situation
Q: An ethnic neighborhood is best described as which of the following?
Answer: C. A voluntary urban community where people of similar origin reside
Q: Toponyms in southern California reflect which of the following?
Answer: A. Cultural heritage of the settlers
Q: The township and range land survey system in the United States contributed to which of the following?
Answer: A. A dispersed rural settlement pattern
Q: Transnational migrants often send money back to their home countries to support nonmigrant family members. What is the term used to describe their international financial transactions?
Answer: E. Remittances
Q: Which of the following countries has experienced an economic boom as a result of the reclassification of tar sands from potential reserves to proven reserves of energy?
Answer: C. Canada
Q: The Gullah language is spoken in African-American communities of the coastal southeastern United States, particularly in South Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Florida. It is a combination of Elizabethan English and African dialects. One can describe Gullah as a
Answer: A. creolized language
Q: A primate city such as Mexico City is
Answer: B. more than twice the size of any other city in its country and dominant economically and culturally
Q: Traditional labor-intensive agriculture often involves which of the following?
Answer: A. Field terracing
Q: Which of the following has brought significant numbers of foreign visitors and currency to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nepal, and Belize?
Answer: E. Ecotourism
Q: What is the source of dispute between Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, and the United States over political boundaries in the Arctic Ocean and ownership of the North Pole?
Answer: A. They all claim the right to extract natural resources out to the edge of the continental shelf, beyond their exclusive economic zones
Q: Which of the following resources is used to produce the largest amount of electricity in the United States?
Answer: A. Coal mined and transported within the United States by railroads
Q: Which of the following best describes urban planning in the United States?
Answer: B. It is accomplished, for the most part, through local ordinances governing land use
Q: Specialty agriculture and timber production have increased the level of development and gross national income (GNI) of Chile’s economy through which of the following?
Answer: A. Export sales to consumers in the United States, Japan, and other foreign markets
Q: In the first decade of the twenty-first century, which of the following countries had the lowest fertility rate?
Answer: E. South Africa
Q: Cities in India have a competitive advantage over cities in China as locations for international consumer services, such as call centers and bill processing. This advantage has its origins in which of the following?
Answer: C. The English language legacy of British colonialism in India
Q: Which of the following was a consequence of blockbusting in North American cities?
Answer: E. The ethnic composition of neighborhoods changed
Q: In which of the following countries has the diffusion of Christianity met the most resistance?
Answer: A. China
Q: The measure of the average number of children who are born to women of childbearing age in the population is called the
Answer: C. total fertility rate
Q: Sometimes a diffusion process encounters barriers that slow or stop the spread of innovation. Which of the following is an example of such a barrier?
Answer: A. A lack of infrastructure to support a new technology
Q: Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of Hinduism?
Answer: D. It is a universalizing religion
Q: If a manufacturing company uses a single, weight-losing raw material to manufacture its finished product, then most likely the company will
Answer: E. locate its manufacturing plant at the raw material site
Q: In descriptions of interaction between people and the environment, the term “environmental determinism” implies that
Answer: A. the physical environment exclusively shapes humans and their actions
Q: Which of the following is an example of a shatterbelt region?
Answer: A. Eastern Europe
Q: A country in the first stage of demographic transition demonstrates which of the following?
Answer: D. High birth rates, high death rates, and low rates of population growth
Q: The map shown above best fits which of the following map types?
Answer: A. Choropleth
Q: In contrast to folk culture, popular culture is typical of
Answer: A. large heterogeneous groups
Q: Which of the following religions is appropriately matched with its region of origin?
Answer: D. Buddhism . . China
Q: Which of the following is South Africa’s former state-sanctioned policy of segregating the races?
Answer: C. Apartheid
Q: Which of the following variables has an inverse or negative relationship with the level of economic development of a country?
Answer: B. Birth rate
Q: A set of economic and political relationships that organizes food production from the development of seed to marketing products is known as
Answer: D. agribusiness
Q: The urban linguistic landscape shown in the photograph above is most likely found in a region where which of the following languages is spoken?
Answer: D. Arabic
Q: In which of the following pairs do both countries exhibit zero or negative population growth rates?
Answer: C. Japan and Germany
Q: The boundaries of congressional districts of the United States are
Answer: B. redrawn every ten years
Q: Often a manufacturing company will attempt to merge with another company that possesses forward or backward links in the supply or production process. Which of the following terms best describes this type of strategy?
Answer: A. Vertical integration
Q: At some point in their recent history, all of the following countries became divided into two political entities as a result of cultural or ideological conflict EXCEPT
Answer: E. Japan
Q: Genetic engineering of agricultural crops has primarily increased the productivity of modern farming by
Answer: C. Increasing plants’ drought resistance and resistance to pests
Q: All of the terms listed in the box above could be used to illustrate what concept?
Answer: C. Architectural adaptions to the natural environment
Q: Which of the following describes the connection between land values and population density?
Answer: A. I only
Q: The diffusion pattern of Walmart stores, which have spread from small towns to large cities throughout the United States, is an example of
Answer: E. Reverse hierarchical diffusion
Q: The industrialization and mechanization of agriculture in the Unites States during the past 70 years have resulted in
Answer: A. A decrease in the number of farms and an increase in the size of farms
Q: In the development of urban land, which of the following is typically built on the most accessible sites?
Answer: C. Retail complexes
Q: Which of the following is the most often cited environmental benefit of the eat-local movement?
Answer: A. Less fossil fuel is used in transporting food to market
Q: Which of the following groups would most likely engage in the gentrification of an older residential neighborhood?
Answer: B. Double-income households without children
Q: Which of the following types of urban land use is most common on the periphery of cities in Latin America?
Answer: Residential squatter settlements.
Q: What do the states represented above have in common?
Answer: They are all federal states.
Q: which of the following is indicated on the graph above?
Answer: Worldwide fertilizer use is increasing but faster in peripheral developing countries.
Q: The shaded areas on the map above most likely indicate regions that are affected or threatened by which of the following?
Answer: Desertification
Q: The map above shows the countries in Africa where private investors and foreign governments have leased farmland for large-scale commercial farming. Usually much of the food produced is bound for wealthier nations. This practice is an example of
Answer: Neocolonialism
Q: Crossing which of the following borders requires few, if any, formalities and thus encourages the free flow of people and products?
Answer: Netherlands-Belgium
Q: Which of the following is the primary reason for the rapid population growth in megacities throughout the developing world?
Answer: Interregional migration
Q: Even though it is a relatively clean source of energy, which of the following is a disadvantage of hydroelectric power?
Answer: It can alter the ecosystems above and below the dam site.
Q: According to the rank-size rule, which of the following is true about the second-largest city in a country?
Answer: It has half the population size of the largest city.
Q: Many companies moved their operations from New England and the Midwest to locations in the South because
Answer: The South had less expensive site factors than northern regions.
Q: A green space in the center of a village reflects the traditional cultural landscape of which of the following United State regions?
Answer: New England
Q: Which statement best describes population growth patterns in the world today?
Answer: In the world as a whole, fertility rates have fallen in the last 25 years.
Q: The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but people in the former East and West Germany still feel its influence. Geographers would say that where the wall once stood now acts as a
Answer: Relict boundary
Q: Mixed-use development, pedestrian-friendly design, and the incorporation of front porches and alleys are design elements of which of the following?
Answer: New urbanism
Q: In which of the following world regions has the Green Revolution had the least impact on agriculture?
Answer: Sub-Saharan Africa
Q: According to Christaller’s central place model, which of the following would most likely have the smallest range?
Answer: A grocery store
Q: Which factor is most responsible for the increase in Japan’s dependency ratio?
Answer: An increase in life expectancy
Q: Which of the following best defines Carl Sauer’s concept of cultural landscape?
Answer: It is the outcome of interactions between humans and their natural environment.
Q: Sri Lanka and Australia have about the same population. What data would help you determine which country has a higher physiological population density?
Answer: The amount of arable land in each country.
Q: Economic complementarities between two places tend to
Answer: Occur when each place specializes in commodities demanded by the other.
Q: The spread of the use of chopsticks into Southeast Asian countries with the influx of Chinese immigrants is an example of which of the following concepts?
Answer: Relocation diffusion
Q: Based on the population pyramid above, which of the following will pose the greatest demographic challenge to China beginning in 2029?
Answer: Providing for the needs of its aging population.
Q: Using the diagram above, at what distance from the central business district will recreational land use begin to outbid all other land uses?
Answer: About 10 miles
Q: The Malthusian view of the world argues that
Answer: Famine in developing countries can be explained by examining their patterns of population growth.
Q: Which of the following is NOT part of the definition of a state?
Answer: A common language