THE MODELS
SCALE & PATTERN
CAUSE & EFFECT
COMPARE
TRAP ANSWERS
100
Possibilism replaced this earlier model, which claimed climate and terrain dictated a society's level of development.
What is environmental determinism? MC TIP — Determinism is now read as a justification for colonialism. Stems naming Ratzel or Ellen Churchill Semple point here.
100
Global, national, regional, local — arranging a study from broadest to narrowest describes this.
What is scale of analysis? MC TIP — AP wants you to name the scale AND explain what that scale reveals or hides.
100
Improved transportation and communication technology caused this shrinking of perceived distance.
What is time-space compression? MC TIP — Name the technology and the effect together: containerized shipping compressed the COST of distance, not just the time.
100
One shows where things are; the other shows a pattern in data.
What are reference maps and thematic maps? MC TIP — Say that distinction in one sentence and half of Unit 1's map questions solve themselves.
100
The trap: a stem asks which technology determines exact position on Earth's surface. Students grab GIS. Name the right answer.
What is GPS? MC TIP — Read the verb. Determine position = GPS. Analyze layers = GIS. Collect from a distance = remote sensing.
200
Tobler's First Law is the formal statement behind this model of declining interaction over distance.
What is distance decay? MC TIP — Graph it and you get a curve that drops steeply then flattens — not a straight line.
200
A dot map with one dot per 1,000 people reveals this kind of spatial arrangement.
What is clustering (or dispersion)? MC TIP — The three pattern words are clustered, dispersed, and linear. Use them by name — describing the pattern loosely loses the point on an FRQ.
200
A place sits at the mouth of a navigable river with ocean access and grows into a major port — the effect of a favorable what?
What is situation? MC TIP — Situation causes GROWTH and trade importance. Site drives the physical decisions — where the walls go, where the water is.
200
One is fixed by coordinates; the other is described by what is nearby and changes over time.
What are absolute and relative location? MC TIP — Relative distance can be measured in TIME or COST, not just miles. Two hours from Dallas is relative distance.
200
The trap: a map of total COVID cases by state shades California darkest. Why is that map misleading?
What is failure to normalize — it is mapping population, not infection rate? MC TIP — Any choropleth of raw totals is a trap. Credited answers convert to per-capita rates.
300
Predicts interaction between two places using their populations and the distance between them.
What is the gravity model? MC TIP — Interaction goes UP with population and DOWN with distance squared. Two big cities close together = maximum interaction. It returns in Units 2, 6, and 7.
300
The U.S. has one of the world's highest GDPs, yet Mississippi Delta counties have poverty above 30%. Changing this resolves the contradiction.
What is the scale of analysis? MC TIP — National averages HIDE regional and local variation. Any stem with however, at the local level is testing exactly this.
300
Building a dam causes irrigation and hydroelectricity upstream, and this predictable harm downstream.
What is loss of sediment and nutrient deposition (or disrupted fish migration)? MC TIP — Every environmental-modification question wants a BENEFIT and an UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE. Give both.
300
One preserves true area and distorts shape; the other preserves shape and direction and wildly inflates area.
What are Gall-Peters and Mercator? MC TIP — The political argument: Mercator visually inflates Europe and North America, which is why Gall-Peters was promoted as more equitable.
300
The trap: the stem says a trait spread across the region as people moved into it. Students pick contagious. Name the real answer.
What is relocation diffusion? MC TIP — As people moved is the tell. If the carriers relocate, it is never expansion diffusion.
400
McDonald's opens in Tokyo and sells a teriyaki burger — the idea survived, the form changed. Name the diffusion type.
What is stimulus diffusion? MC TIP — Stimulus is the one students miss. The underlying IDEA spreads; the specific trait is altered or rejected. Contagious spreads the trait intact.
400
A map of an entire continent at 1:20,000,000 gets this scale label, even though it shows an enormous area.
What is small scale? MC TIP — The fraction is the giveaway. 1/20,000,000 is a tiny fraction, so small scale, so large area and little detail.
400
GPS and GIS caused this change in farming, letting growers vary water and fertilizer rates within a single field.
What is precision agriculture? MC TIP — A Unit 1 geospatial answer that pays off again in Unit 5. Effects: higher yields, lower input costs, less runoff.
400
One spreads when people physically carry it somewhere new; the other spreads while the source population stays put.
What are relocation and expansion diffusion? MC TIP — Relocation requires MIGRATION. Every Unit 2 migration question is secretly a relocation-diffusion question too.
400
The trap: an answer choice says the environment determines a society's economic success. Why is it always wrong?
What is environmental determinism, rejected in favor of possibilism? MC TIP — Absolute words — determines, forces, guarantees, prevents — are almost always wrong answers in human geography.
500
Hip-hop spreading New York to Los Angeles to Chicago before reaching small rural towns demonstrates this.
What is hierarchical diffusion? MC TIP — Hierarchical jumps DOWN an urban hierarchy and skips the countryside. If the pattern is city-to-city with gaps between, it is never contagious.
500
Drawing conclusions about individuals from data collected about their group — the error that makes county-level election maps misleading.
What is the ecological fallacy? MC TIP — A red county does not mean every voter is Republican. Aggregated data describes the AREA, not the people in it.
500
Widespread geospatial technology and mobile location data caused this concern the CED lists as a limitation.
What is loss of privacy (surveillance)? MC TIP — The CED explicitly wants the DOWNSIDES of geographic data: privacy, unequal access, the digital divide, and data that misrepresents the places it maps.
500
One is organized around a node and fades outward; the other is uniform throughout with a hard measurable edge.
What are functional and formal regions? MC TIP — The same place can be all three at once: a city is formal by its legal limits, functional by its commuting zone, perceptual by its reputation.
500
The trap: a 1:1,200,000 map tempts students to call it large scale because the number is large. Name it correctly.
What is small scale? MC TIP — Compare the FRACTIONS, not the denominators. 1/1,200,000 is far smaller than 1/24,000, so the 1:24,000 map is the large-scale one.
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