APFIVE AP Human Geography Exam Info
Download PDFThe AP Human Geography Exam will test your understanding of the geographic concepts covered in the course units, as well as your ability to analyze maps, geospatial data, infographics, and more.
This is a fully digital exam. You’ll complete multiple-choice and free-response questions in the Bluebook testing app, with all responses automatically submitted at the end of the exam.
AP Human Geography Exam
This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP Human Geography Exam.
Exam Components
Section I: Multiple Choice
The multiple-choice section includes individual questions as well as sets of questions. You’ll be asked to:
- Analyze geographic concepts, processes, patterns, and relationships
- Analyze geographic data from maps, tables, charts, graphs, satellite images, and infographics.
- Interpret geographic information represented visually in maps, satellite images, photographs, cartoons, and landscapes.
- Analyze spatial relationships using geographic scales
Section II: Free Response
In the free-response section, you’ll respond to three questions with written answers. All three will present an authentic geographic situation or scenario, and at least two will ask you to explain and analyze spatial relationships across geographic scales.
- The first question will have text only.
- The second question will ask you to analyze and/or interpret data, an image, or a map.
- The third question will feature two stimuli, which will include data, images, and/or maps.
At least one of the free-response questions assesses your ability to analyze across geographic scales to explain spatial relationships.
Skills You'll Learn
Connecting geographic concepts and processes to real-life scenarios
Understanding information shown in maps, tables, charts, graphs, infographics, images, and landscapes
Seeing patterns and trends in data and in visual sources such as maps and drawing conclusions from them
Understanding spatial relationships using geographic scales
Units
Unit 1: Thinking Geographically
You’ll learn about the tools and methods geographers use in their study of places.
Topics may include:
- Different types of maps and what they tell you
- How geographers collect and use data
- Spatial relationships and patterns
- Data analysis at different scales (for example, global, national, local)
- How geographers define regions
On The Exam
8%–10% of multiple-choice score
Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes
You’ll explore the patterns associated with human populations.
Topics may include:
- Population density and how it affects society and the environment
- Theories of population growth and decline
- Population and immigration policies and their effects
- The causes and effects of migration
On The Exam
12%–17% of multiple-choice score
Unit 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes
You’ll focus on how and why language, religion, and other cultural practices spread over space and time.
Topics may include:
- The different ways that cultural practices spread
- Historical forces, such as colonialism and trade, that affect cultural patterns
- Modern forces, such as globalization, that affect cultural patterns
- Why different religions spread in different ways
On The Exam
12%–17% of multiple-choice score
Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes
You’ll build on your knowledge of populations and cultural patterns as you learn about the political organization of the world.
Topics may include:
- Types of political entities such as nations and nation-states
- The ideas and forces that shaped the political boundaries of the modern world
- Forms of government such as unitary states and federal states
- The factors that lead to states breaking apart
On The Exam
12%–17% of multiple-choice score
Unit 5: Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes
You’ll learn where humans first developed agriculture and how farming practices spread throughout the world.
Topics may include:
- How physical geography influences farming practices
- The origins and spread of agriculture
- The Green Revolution
- How farming practices affect the environment and society
On The Exam
12%–17% of multiple-choice score
Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes
You’ll explore the origins and influences of urbanization, examining cities across the world and the role of those cities in globalization.
Topics may include:
- The factors that drive the growth of cities and suburbs
- Globalization and cities
- City infrastructure
- Urban design initiatives and practices
On The Exam
12%–17% of multiple-choice score
Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes
You’ll study the origins and influences of industrialization, along with the role industrialization plays in economic development.
Topics may include:
- The Industrial Revolution
- Economic sectors and patterns
- How economic development affects the roles of women
- Trade and the world economy
On The Exam
12%–17% of multiple-choice score