THE MODELS
SCALE & PATTERN
CAUSE & EFFECT
COMPARE
TRAP ANSWERS
100
The 1826 model of agricultural land use built on concentric rings around a single market city.
What is the von Thünen model? MC TIP — Rings in order: market gardening and dairy, forest, grain, ranching. The logic is TRANSPORTATION COST and perishability.
100
At the global scale commercial agriculture dominates the core, while this dominates the periphery.
What is subsistence agriculture? MC TIP — State the scale, then the pattern, then the cause — capital, mechanization, and market access.
100
The First Agricultural Revolution produced a food surplus, which caused this fundamental change in human settlement.
What is permanent settlement, urbanization, and job specialization? MC TIP — Surplus is the hinge. No surplus, no cities, no specialization, no social hierarchy.
100
One uses heavy labor or capital on a small plot; the other spreads minimal input over a large area.
What are intensive and extensive agriculture? MC TIP — Location follows: intensive near market, extensive far from it. That is von Thünen restated.
100
The trap: a stem says a farmer grows corn, so students call it commercial agriculture. What is missing?
What is whether the crop is sold or consumed by the household? MC TIP — The CROP never decides the type. The destination of the harvest does.
200
Von Thünen placed forest in the second ring for this reason, which surprises modern students.
What is that firewood and timber were heavy, bulky, and expensive to transport in 1826? MC TIP — The model's logic survives even when the specific ring does not. Weight and perishability still set location today.
200
Mediterranean agriculture appears in five separate world regions — explain the pattern.
What is that all five share the same climate: dry summers and mild wet winters? MC TIP — A pattern driven by CLIMATE rather than culture. It is the cleanest physical-geography answer in the unit.
200
The Second Agricultural Revolution caused this demographic movement by reducing the labor needed on farms.
What is rural-to-urban migration? MC TIP — It also fed the growing cities — so it is both a push and a pull. AP rewards naming both sides.
200
One feeds the household; the other is grown for sale.
What are subsistence and commercial agriculture? MC TIP — The dividing line is the MARKET, not the crop. The same crop can be either.
200
The trap: an answer choice says the Green Revolution ended world hunger. Why is it wrong?
What is that hunger persists because of distribution, poverty, and conflict — not total food supply? MC TIP — Global food production exceeds need. Hunger is a distribution problem. Absolute claims like ended are distractors.
300
Name von Thünen's four assumptions — give any two.
What are an isolated state, flat featureless terrain of uniform fertility, one central market, and one mode of transport? MC TIP — Every FRQ about the model asks which assumption reality violates. A navigable river distorts the rings into an ellipse.
300
From an airplane over Iowa you see a perfect one-mile grid; over Normandy you see irregular winding parcels. Name both systems.
What are township-and-range and metes and bounds? MC TIP — Survey systems are cultural landscape evidence — a Unit 3 skill applied to farmland.
300
The Green Revolution caused these two environmental costs the CED names directly.
What are soil and water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, and aquifer depletion from irrigation? MC TIP — Add the social cost: high-yield inputs favor larger farmers who can afford them, widening rural inequality.
300
One moves herds seasonally between highland and lowland; the other moves continuously across arid pasture.
What are transhumance and pastoral nomadism? MC TIP — Both are extensive subsistence. Transhumance is seasonal and vertical; nomadism follows water and grass.
300
The trap: students say von Thünen's model is outdated and useless because forest is not ring two today. What is the better answer?
What is that the underlying logic — transport cost and perishability determine land use — still holds? MC TIP — AP never wants the model is wrong. It wants which assumption reality violates and how the pattern shifts as a result.
400
Boserup's agricultural model argues population growth causes this, directly opposing Malthus.
What is agricultural intensification and innovation? MC TIP — Boserup: necessity drives technology. Malthus: population outruns food. The Green Revolution is evidence for Boserup.
400
The Green Revolution raised yields dramatically in Asia and Latin America but far less here — name the region and a reason.
What is sub-Saharan Africa, because of poor infrastructure, limited irrigation, unsuitable staple crops, and the cost of inputs? MC TIP — The CED wants the UNEVEN geography of the Green Revolution, not just its success.
400
Agribusiness and vertical integration cause this effect on the independent family farm.
What is consolidation — fewer, larger farms and the loss of small family operations? MC TIP — Effect chain: rural depopulation, loss of rural services, and shrinking small-town economies.
400
One divides land into squares by survey; the other into strips perpendicular to a waterway.
What are township-and-range and long lots? MC TIP — Purpose is the tell. The grid serves orderly sale of land; long lots serve equal water access.
400
The trap: a photo shows terraced hillsides and the option says it shows environmental determinism. Name the right concept.
What is possibilism — humans modifying the environment to overcome its limits? MC TIP — Terracing is the single best possibilism example in the course. Determinism is almost always the wrong choice.
500
The model explaining why a peripheral country grows export cash crops instead of food for its own people.
What is world-systems (dependency) theory? MC TIP — Colonial plantation systems built the pattern; commodity dependence keeps it. This is the Unit 5 bridge into Unit 7.
500
Globally the milkshed has expanded from a few hours to continental distances because of this.
What is refrigeration and improved transportation? MC TIP — Technology loosens von Thünen's rings. Naming the technology is what earns the point.
500
Growing global demand for beef and soy causes this effect in the Amazon.
What is deforestation for pasture and cropland? MC TIP — Global commodity chains link consumer choices in the core to land-cover change in the periphery. That link is the credited answer.
500
One raised yields through hybrid seeds and chemicals; the other raises them through genetic engineering and GPS-guided inputs.
What are the Green Revolution and the Third Agricultural Revolution? MC TIP — Green Revolution = mid-20th century. Third = biotechnology, GMOs, precision agriculture, aquaculture.
500
The trap: an option claims plantation agriculture is subsistence because it is in a peripheral country. What is wrong?
What is that plantations are large-scale COMMERCIAL export agriculture, regardless of where they are located? MC TIP — Location does not set the category. Plantations are commercial, extensive, and colonial in origin.
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