THE MODELS
SCALE & PATTERN
CAUSE & EFFECT
COMPARE
TRAP ANSWERS
100
Sauer's model treats culture as the agent, the natural area as the medium, and this as the result.
What is the cultural landscape? MC TIP — Sauer is the founder of cultural landscape analysis. Any stem asking what the built environment reveals is asking you to read it as Sauer.
100
At the global scale English dominates as a lingua franca, yet at the local scale this happens to Indigenous languages.
What is language extinction (language loss)? MC TIP — Roughly half the world's ~7,000 languages are endangered. Revival efforts — Hebrew, Welsh, Hawaiian — are the CED's counterexample.
100
Time-space compression and global media cause this effect on cultural distinctiveness.
What is cultural convergence (homogenization)? MC TIP — The counter-effect is equally testable: local resistance, cultural nationalism, and revival movements.
100
One retains the original identity while adding the dominant culture; the other replaces it entirely.
What are acculturation and assimilation? MC TIP — Syncretism is the third — a genuine blend producing something that is neither original.
100
The trap: a stem describes Hinduism spreading to Britain and students call it universalizing. Name the correct process.
What is relocation diffusion of an ethnic religion through migration? MC TIP — An ethnic religion appearing abroad means people MOVED. It does not mean the religion started seeking converts.
200
The two competing models for how Indo-European languages spread out of a single hearth.
What are the Kurgan hypothesis and the Anatolian hypothesis? MC TIP — Kurgan = horse-riding nomads conquering outward. Anatolian = farmers spreading peacefully with agriculture. Both are in the CED by name.
200
The United States is majority Christian nationally, but this pattern appears at the neighborhood scale in Dearborn, Michigan.
What is an ethnic (religious) enclave? MC TIP — National majorities hide local concentrations. Every Unit 3 scale question turns on this move.
200
Colonialism caused this lasting effect on the official language map of Africa and South Asia.
What is the imposition of European colonial languages as official languages? MC TIP — Effect: a lingua franca useful for trade and administration that also marginalizes Indigenous languages. Both halves earn credit.
200
One seeks converts and spreads by expansion; the other is tied to a people and spreads by relocation.
What are universalizing and ethnic religions? MC TIP — Christianity, Islam, Buddhism versus Hinduism, Judaism, Shinto. The diffusion type follows from the category.
200
The trap: an answer choice says globalization eliminates local culture. Why is that wrong?
What is that globalization also produces cultural divergence, revival, and syncretism — local culture adapts rather than disappears? MC TIP — Eliminates, erases, destroys — absolute verbs are almost always the wrong choice.
300
Applying the gravity model to culture predicts that this kind of city pair exchanges the most cultural influence.
What are two large cities located close together? MC TIP — Interaction rises with size and falls with distance squared — which is why cultural traits jump between big metros before reaching nearby rural areas.
300
The spatial pattern produced when a religion concentrates almost entirely in its hearth region.
What is clustering, typical of an ethnic religion? MC TIP — Universalizing religions show a dispersed global pattern with multiple nodes. Ethnic religions show one cluster plus a diaspora.
300
Chain migration causes this visible effect on the destination's cultural landscape.
What is the formation of an ethnic enclave with distinctive signage, religious buildings, and food markets? MC TIP — Push the chain forward: enclaves reduce the pressure to assimilate and sustain the language for another generation.
300
One has no native speakers; the other has become a community's first language.
What are a pidgin and a creole? MC TIP — Haitian Creole and Louisiana Creole are the go-to examples. The moment children learn it at home, it stops being a pidgin.
300
The trap: students label Tex-Mex food assimilation. Name the right term and why.
What is syncretism — two traditions blended into a new form, with neither replaced? MC TIP — Assimilation requires LOSS. If both parents are still visible in the result, it is syncretism.
400
The model of language classification that runs family, branch, group, then individual language — name the level Germanic occupies.
What is a branch of Indo-European? MC TIP — English sits in the West Germanic group of the Germanic branch of Indo-European. Knowing the ladder beats memorizing the tree.
400
Sequent occupance — name what a landscape with a Roman wall, a medieval church, and a glass office tower demonstrates.
What is successive societies each leaving their imprint on the same place? MC TIP — Sequent occupance is a Unit 3 vocabulary word that shows up in Unit 6 urban questions. Layers, not replacement.
400
Missionary activity and imperial conquest caused universalizing religions to show this diffusion pattern.
What is expansion diffusion (contagious and hierarchical), often combined with relocation? MC TIP — Islam spread by conquest and trade routes; Christianity by missionary and colonial networks; Buddhism by trade and royal patronage.
400
One uses local materials and has anonymous origins; the other is mass-produced and diffused by media.
What are folk and popular culture? MC TIP — Folk architecture responds to local climate and materials. Popular architecture looks the same in every climate — which is the environmental critique.
400
The trap: a question calls English the official language of the United States. What is the problem?
What is that the U.S. has no federal official language? MC TIP — Watch for answer choices that assert legal facts. Lingua franca does not mean official.
500
The process model where a trait spreads down an urban hierarchy explains why fashion reaches Manhattan before rural Kansas.
What is hierarchical diffusion? MC TIP — Popular culture diffuses hierarchically through media hubs. Folk culture diffuses by relocation. Match the culture type to the diffusion type.
500
A single toponym like New Amsterdam becoming New York is evidence of this larger process.
What is a change in political and cultural control? MC TIP — Toponyms are landscape evidence. Renaming Leningrad to St. Petersburg or Bombay to Mumbai signals decolonization or regime change.
500
Government policies banning minority languages in schools cause this outcome the CED names.
What is forced assimilation and accelerated language loss? MC TIP — Tie it to Unit 4: a state promoting one language is building nationalism and suppressing centrifugal forces.
500
One is judging others by your own standards; the other is understanding them on their own terms.
What are ethnocentrism and cultural relativism? MC TIP — Stems about colonial attitudes, immigration debates, or backward descriptions are testing ethnocentrism by another name.
500
The trap: a stem shows a photo of a suburban strip mall and asks what it demonstrates. Students say sense of place. Name the right term.
What is placelessness (landscape homogenization)? MC TIP — Sense of place is DISTINCTIVENESS. A landscape that could be anywhere is the opposite of it.
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