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exam-tips

This document provides exam tips for AP Comparative Government and Politics, emphasizing the importance of carefully reading questions and understanding specific action verbs like 'list,' 'define,' and 'analyze.' It advises students to focus on writing clear, concise, and well-supported responses using concrete examples and specific evidence. The document highlights that effective answers must directly address the questions and demonstrate a clear understanding of the concepts involved.

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8 views1 page

exam-tips

This document provides exam tips for AP Comparative Government and Politics, emphasizing the importance of carefully reading questions and understanding specific action verbs like 'list,' 'define,' and 'analyze.' It advises students to focus on writing clear, concise, and well-supported responses using concrete examples and specific evidence. The document highlights that effective answers must directly address the questions and demonstrate a clear understanding of the concepts involved.

Uploaded by

ra.2009.capricorn
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Exam Tips: AP Comparative Government and Politics

Read the Questions Carefully


This applies to both multiple-choice and free-response questions. For multiple-choice questions it is important for students to read the
question carefully to look for words such as "NOT" and "EXCEPT." For free-response questions it is important that students respond to ALL
PARTS of the question being asked. Understanding what is being asked and responding with specific evidence is a very useful skill. Long,
involved descriptions full of random facts about a specific concept or political phenomenon are neither encouraged nor rewarded in the
grading process; students must be taught to "read for the guidelines" in order to make sure both their information and presentation clearly
and completely answer the actual question that is being asked.

Understand the Instructions and Action Verbs


Students may be asked to list, discuss, describe, explain, analyze, etc.; these are not all identical tasks. Also, the question may call for more
than one task, such as both to identify and explain. Students should understand that some tasks are more complex than others. For
example, composing a list may not even require a complete sentence, but students may need to write several paragraphs for a satisfactory
discussion, including well-developed examples as support, in order to adequately explain some phenomenon. Here are some of the most
common action words used in past free-response questions:

• List/Identify: Listing or identifying is a task that requires no more than a simple enumeration of some factors or characteristics. A list
does not require any causal explanations. For example, a student might be asked to list or identify three factors that increase political
legitimacy. Such a list could be bulleted or numbered, and might include such factors as a written constitution, competitive elections,
and transparent institutions.

• Define: A definition requires a student to provide a meaning for a word or concept. Examples may help to demonstrate understanding
of the definition. Students may be instructed to note the term's significance as part of the definition.

• Describe: A description involves providing a depiction or portrayal of a phenomenon or its most significant characteristics.
Descriptions most often address "what" questions. For example, if students are asked to describe a political cleavage in Mexico, they
must demonstrate knowledge that the cleavage has at least two sides by describing what the two sides are.

• Discuss: Discussions generally require that students explore relationships between different concepts or phenomena. Identifying,
describing, and explaining could be required tasks involved in writing a satisfactory discussion.

• Explain: An explanation involves the exploration of possible causal relationships. When providing explanations, students should
identify and discuss logical connections or causal patterns that exist between or among various political phenomena.

• Compare/Contrast: This task requires students to make specific links between two or more concepts, occurrences, or countries. Thus,
students cannot simply have a one-paragraph description of how women participate in Iranian politics and a one-paragraph
description of how they participate in Nigeria with no connections between the two paragraphs. To correctly compare participation of
women in Nigeria and Iran there must be cross paragraph references and development of a comparative structure. The students must
provide the connective tissue. They should understand that it is important to note similarities AND differences.

• Evaluate/Assess: An evaluation or assessment involves considering how well something meets a certain standard, and as such
generally requires a thesis. It is important to identify the criteria used in the evaluation. If no criteria are explicitly given in the
question, students should take care to clearly identify the ones that they choose to employ. Specific examples may be applied to the
criteria to support the student's thesis. Evaluation or assessment requires explicit connections between the thesis or argument and
the supporting evidence.

• Analyze: This task usually requires separating a phenomenon into its component parts or characteristics as a way of understanding
the whole. An analysis should yield explicit conclusions that are explained or supported by specific evidence and/or well-reasoned
arguments.

Focus on Writing a Clear, Concise, and Well-Supported Response


Students should marshal evidence to document and support their statements and make use of concrete examples to demonstrate the main
points of their arguments. They should explicitly define important terms and use the clearest, most direct terms possible. A direct, clear
answer is likely to earn more points than a vague, rambling, ambiguous response.

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