Everything YOU NEED to know about the TASK VERBS! (AP Human Geography)

Summary

In this video, Mr. Sinn covers essential task verbs used in AP Human Geography exams, focusing on how to approach them in free response questions. The simpler verbs like 'identify,' 'define,' and 'describe' usually require straightforward answers, while 'compare' and 'explain' demand more detailed explanations and understanding of the relationships between concepts. Special emphasis is placed on how to tackle 'explain' questions, given their high frequency on exams. Mr. Sinn also recommends resources for further study and practice, including his Ultimate Review Packet, to better prepare for the AP exam.

Highlights

• Task verbs are key to mastering AP Human Geography exams. 🔑
• 'Identify' questions require quick and direct answers, often linked to stimuli like maps or charts. 🗺️
• 'Define' asks for clear meanings without in-depth analysis. 📝
• 'Describe' needs more details, showing understanding beyond definitions with relevant characteristics. 📖
• For 'compare,' show relationships and provide substantial information on both concepts. ⚖️
• 'Explain' necessitates a full understanding of processes or patterns, often needing real-world examples. 🌎
• Different forms of 'explain,' like 'explain the degree,' need reasoning and logic in the response. 🤔

Key Takeaways

• Understanding task verbs is crucial for conquering AP Human Geography free response questions! 📚
• 'Identify,' 'define,' and 'describe' are the simpler task verbs – think short and sweet! 💡
• 'Compare' requires understanding relationships and showing similarities or differences between concepts. ⚖️
• 'Explain' tasks are common and require detailed examples and logical connections – practice them the most! 🔍
• Use Mr. Sinn's Ultimate Review Packet for comprehensive study aids and to boost your exam scores. 🏆

Overview

Mr. Sinn, a seasoned AP Human Geography educator, breaks down the critical role of task verbs in tackling free response questions. Simplifying what each verb demands, he starts with the easy ones: 'identify,' 'define,' and 'describe.' These require concise answers without unnecessary elaboration, making them low-hanging fruits in scoring.

He dives deeper into the more demanding task verbs, 'compare' and 'explain,' which require analysis and exposition. 'Compare' reveals the relationships between concepts, necessitating a balanced discussion on similarities and differences, while 'explain' demands a comprehensive understanding, backed by evidence and real-world examples.

To aid students in mastering these task verbs, Mr. Sinn advises utilizing his Ultimate Review Packet, which offers targeted videos, practice tests, and study guides. He emphasizes the importance of practice, particularly with 'explain' questions, as these appear most frequently on the AP exam, ensuring students are well-prepared to excel.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Task Verbs In the introduction to task verbs for AP Human Geography, Mr. Sin discusses various task verbs encountered in free response and multiple-choice questions. The lesson begins with the 'identify' verb, which is considered straightforward. For 'identify' questions, students should provide succinct information about a specific topic without extensive explanation. These types of questions frequently appear in assessments.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Identify The chapter discusses how to identify indicators used in calculating the Human Development Index (HDI) scores by examining a question from a national exam. It provides examples of indicators such as life expectancy, Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, and average years of schooling.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Define The chapter titled 'Define' focuses on the task of defining a word, concept, or phenomenon in a concise manner. It emphasizes the need to show clear understanding without delving into in-depth analysis. A reference is made to the 2023 AP Human Geography National exam where students were required to define 'territoriality.'
• 03:00 - 04:00: Describe In the chapter titled 'Describe,' the focus is on teaching students how to effectively describe concepts in political geography. The chapter emphasizes that students must not only define terms such as territoriality—which is described as a connection of people, their culture, and economic systems to the land they inhabit—but also provide detailed descriptions of any relevant characteristics. This approach aims to demonstrate a deeper understanding of topics beyond mere definitions, as highlighted by the national exam of 2023.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Role of Task Verbs in Exams The chapter focuses on understanding the role of task verbs in exams, particularly in how students should respond to specific types of questions. Using an example of a migration pattern question, it explains that when asked to 'describe one reason,' students should give a single, well-explained answer like citing the climate as a reason for migration patterns. Importantly, the chapter advises against providing multiple reasons when only one is asked for, emphasizing the need for conciseness and relevance in exam answers.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Compare In the chapter titled 'Compare,' the focus is on task verbs that are commonly encountered in an FRQ (Free Response Questions) exam context. The chapter starts by highlighting that students often encounter task verbs such as 'identify,' 'define,' and 'describe' frequently, which might make them seem straightforward and less critical. However, these verbs can offer easy points in exams if handled correctly. The emphasis then shifts to other task verbs that indicate a deeper complexity in responses - crucial for achieving higher scores (such as fours or fives) on exams. Students are advised to thoroughly understand and practice these complex task verbs to maximize their potential scores.
• 06:00 - 10:00: Explain The chapter 'Explain' likely covers a variety of topics or concepts to help enhance understanding, though the specific content isn't detailed in the provided transcript. The transcript does mention a resource called the 'ultimate review packet', which is designed to aid students preparing for an exam, particularly an AP exam. This packet includes videos, practice tests, study guides, and answer keys, all tailored around the CD framework to optimize study sessions. The emphasis is on the packet being a comprehensive tool that can significantly boost the student’s performance, aiming to help them achieve high grades. Overall, the chapter may focus on explaining educational resources and strategies for exam preparation.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Practice and Review Resources The chapter titled 'Practice and Review Resources' discusses strategies for approaching the 'compare' task verb on the National exam. It emphasizes the importance of demonstrating relationships between concepts, and highlighting similarities and differences, rather than merely defining them. The chapter references an example from the 2023 National exam to illustrate a typical compare question.

Everything YOU NEED to know about the TASK VERBS! (AP Human Geography) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello there geographers and welcome back to the Mr sin Channel today we are going to review the different task verbs that you will see on your free response questions and multiple choice questions for AP Human Geography the first task verb you will see is one of the easier task verbs to tackle and it is identified when you come across an identifi question think short and sweet this question is looking for you to provide information about a specific topic you don't need to add a bunch of explanations for these answers often times you will see identified questions
• 00:30 - 01:00 connected to a stimulus such as a map chart picture or data set for instance let's look at part A from the 20123 national exam here we have a question that says using the data categories in the table identify one indicator that is used to calculate HDI scores we could answer this question by saying that an indicator used to calculate the HDI is life expectancy or we could mention gni per capita or the average years of schooling all of those answers would end
• 01:00 - 01:30 up getting us the point the next task verb is another short and sweet one and it is defined a defined question wants you to provide the meaning for a word concept or phenomenon once again you don't need to provide an in-depth analysis or big explanation but you do need to make sure that you've clearly shown that you understand what the word concept or phenomenon is for instance we can go back to the 2023 AP Human Geography National exam students had to define the concept of territoriality in
• 01:30 - 02:00 terms of political geography to get the full point students needed to put down an answer that defined territoriality as the connection of people their culture and their economic systems to the land where they live up next is describe and this is where your answers need to be a little bit more detailed when you see a describe question you want to make sure you write about any relevant characteristics of the topic the goal here is to show that you know more than just the definition going back to the 2023 National exam we can see a describe
• 02:00 - 02:30 question in question three describe one reason for migration patterns shown on the map an acceptable answer could be that migration occurs due to the Region's climate as the dry seasons will force herters to migrate to areas with more rainfall and access to water one thing to note here is that there are multiple ways to answer this question but notice the question is only asking for one reason save yourself the time and just focus on providing one quality answer now generally speaking you're not
• 02:30 - 03:00 going to see a lot of these first three task verbs on an FR frq you might get one identified task verb one defined task verb and maybe two or three describe but that doesn't mean that you can forget about them these task verbs hopefully can get you some easy points all right so now that we've talked about the more simple task verbs we are going to move on to the last two which is where the complexity increases if you're looking to get that four or five on the exam then you need to spend time with these task verbs and make sure you understand exactly what they are asking
• 03:00 - 03:30 you to do but real quick before we talk about those terms if you are looking to level up your studies and crush this upcoming exam then you need to check out my ultimate review packet it comes with exclusive videos practice tests study guides answer keys and much more everything in the packet is designed around the CD to help you fine-tune your studying to help you rock the AP exam this packet is one of the best online resources out there and it'll definitely help you get an A in your class and a
• 03:30 - 04:00 five on that National exam all right up first is the compared task verb and when you see this task verb realize that you have to show a relationship between two concepts or highlight different similarities and differences between the concepts make sure when you're answering a compared question you do not simply Define the concept you need to have an answer that has substance for both of the concepts it's asking about on the 2023 National exam we saw an example of a compare question the question was
• 04:00 - 04:30 compare one difference between rni and the total fertility rate as indicators of population change now notice we not only have two concepts here the rate of natural increase and the total fertility rate but we also have to make sure our answer connects to population change an acceptable answer for this question could be that rni is the annual population growth rate of a society it includes the crude birth rate and crude death rate but not immigration or immigration while the total fertility rate shows the number of children that
• 04:30 - 05:00 may be born to women who are in the age range of having children whenever you have a compare question your answer will have to have two parts you need to provide information on both of the concepts that the question is asking about okay so now comes the time to talk about explain and this is a task verb that you need to practice it will most likely be the most common task verb you see in your F frqs and can be worded in a variety of ways make sure when you're answering an explained question that you show how or why a relationship process
• 05:00 - 05:30 or pattern happen you need to use evidence and logic to show a full understanding of the information that the question is asking about whoever is reading your answer should be able to see that you have a full understanding of the concept this is where you definitely want to have a real world example and provide as much detail as possible looking back at the 2023 National exam we can see that explain was used as a task verb in the following ways set two had one explain the degree question three explain why questions
• 05:30 - 06:00 five explain one questions and four explain how questions so out of the 21 task verbs used on the national exam set two had 13 explained task verbs which means 61.9% of questions used in explain task forb this is why you need to make sure you practice this task verb and not just practice answering questions that have you explain a concept you need to practice the different ways in which this task verb can be used used
• 06:00 - 06:30 generally speaking you may see this task verb appear in questions in the following ways the most common being explain why explain how explain one and explain a possible strength or limitation you may also see explain the degree this is the hardest form of this task forb to answer and is meant to be challenging so don't get psyched out if you see it on the test if you see an explain the degree you need to show the extent to which a concept model Theory or process explains a real world phenomenon essentially you're trying to
• 06:30 - 07:00 say a certain degree to which the topic of the question works in the real world in your answer you need to make sure you include the degree High moderate low and explain the concept and your reasoning for the degree for instance in the 2023 National exam students had to answer the following question explain the degree to which a unitary government may be more effective than a federal government in enforcing anti-natalist policies so right away this question is asking a lot and I want to draw your attention to a a couple Concepts the first being the task
• 07:00 - 07:30 verb the second is that we're talking about unitary government and a federal government and lastly our answer does have to connect to the enforcement of anti-natalist policies that's a variety of things happening all at once to try and help you better understand how to answer this task verb and to understand this question what I want you to do now is read an answer submitted by a student last year who got the full point pause the video now and read their answer notice how the student States the degree right away by saying much more
• 07:30 - 08:00 effectively the student goes on to show a full understanding of unitary and federal governments but doesn't end there they go on to illustrate how that impacts the government's ability to implement anti-natalist policies lastly they finish their answer off with an example to further solidify that they understand the concepts and how they work in the real world one other point I want to make about explain the degree questions is there are multiple ways to answer these questions for instance the question we just talked about you could
• 08:00 - 08:30 have gotten full points for also explaining how there is a low or moderate degree of Effectiveness the key here is to highlight in your answer the degree and explain your logic and reasoning for that degree at the end of the day one of the most effective things you can do is to practice take previously released F frqs and try to answer them become familiar with how these task verbs are used and how you should answer them to find the previously released frqs you can head on down to the description of this video
• 08:30 - 09:00 and if you're looking for even more practice you can check out my ultimate review packet or the test pack for more frq and multiple choice practice well there you have it those are the task GRS that you need to be familiar with for your upcoming AP National exam now go out there geographers and practice as always I'm Mr sin thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time online