Practice Test 78 - AP Human Geography

20 questions. Answer them in any order, then submit to see your score and every explanation.

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1. Secondary source excerpt (embedded): Public-health literature argues that improving access to prenatal care and emergency obstetric services reduces maternal deaths, but gains are uneven when clinics are concentrated in cities. In one country, the national maternal mortality ratio fell, yet remote districts still faced long travel times and shortages of skilled staff. Researchers emphasize that infrastructure, affordability, and respectful care influence whether women can use services. Which option best captures the excerpt's explanation of why maternal mortality improvements may be uneven?
2. A development report summarizes that the share of people working in agriculture differs sharply across countries. In some lower-income states, agriculture remains a major employer, while in many higher-income economies, a small agricultural labor force produces a large share of food through mechanization and supply chains. The report cautions that these are broad tendencies: within-country differences by region, gender, and season can be substantial, and informal work is often undercounted. The agricultural characteristic described is most typical of which of the following?
3. A secondary source excerpt discusses how long-term immigration to Toronto has increased the number of languages spoken in schools and expanded ethnic restaurants, festivals, and media. It also notes that institutions adapt through multilingual services and debates over integration policies. Which effect of migration is most directly described?
4. A secondary-source excerpt on religious diffusion describes how enslaved Africans in the Caribbean blended West African spiritual practices with Catholic saints and rituals under colonial rule, creating new ceremonies, symbols, and meanings that were neither identical to the African religions nor to European Catholicism. Which effect of cultural diffusion is best represented?​
5. A secondary source excerpt notes that geometric boundaries can be precise in coordinates but still produce governance challenges because they may split communities and transportation networks. In a hypothetical region, the boundary is described in law as "the line of $100^\circ$ W longitude from the 30th parallel to the 35th parallel." Which classification best matches this boundary?
6. A rural library system observes that residents are far more likely to attend in-person events at branches within a 15-minute drive. Attendance declines steadily with longer drive times, even though all branches host the same events. The system considers adding a bookmobile and livestreamed talks to increase participation from distant communities. Which spatial concept is most directly being applied in this decision?
7. Secondary source excerpt: The DTM is a simplified model based largely on historical patterns observed in Europe and North America. It is useful for organizing how death rates often fall before birth rates, but it has limitations. Critics argue it can be Eurocentric, may not fit countries affected by colonialism, conflict, or rapid policy-driven fertility change, and it can imply a universal sequence even though real places may stall, reverse, or follow different timelines. Which choice is the best critique of using the DTM as a universal explanation for all countries' demographic change?
8. An empire drew a straight border before large-scale settlement; farms later grew around it. This is:
9. Secondary source excerpt (about 105 words): Even when neighboring states cooperate, political boundaries can remain central to security screening. Joint patrols, shared watchlists, and intelligence coordination may reduce duplication, but they still aim to identify specific cross-border threats such as trafficking networks or unauthorized weapons flows. At the same time, cooperative agreements may create faster lanes for pre-approved travelers and shipments to support regional economic goals. This combination shows that boundaries can be managed collaboratively while still functioning to regulate movement. Cooperation changes how control is implemented, not whether control exists. Which option best identifies the primary function of boundaries emphasized in the excerpt?
10. Secondary source excerpt (about 100 words): Researchers use the term edge city to describe suburban nodes of offices, retail, and entertainment that rival older downtowns. In the United States, Tysons (outside Washington, D.C.) grew at highway interchanges with office parks, malls, and later transit expansions, drawing jobs away from the historic CBD. In parts of East Asia, similar peripheral business districts have emerged near ring roads and new rail stations, but often with higher-density residential towers integrated nearby. Which option best identifies the shared feature that makes these places "edge cities"?
11. Secondary source excerpt (sequent occupance, 75–125 words): Sequent occupance describes how successive cultural groups can occupy the same place and leave layered imprints on the landscape. Instead of one "original" landscape, many locations show traces of multiple eras—such as Indigenous trail corridors later widened into colonial roads, followed by industrial rail lines and modern highways. Place names, building styles, and land boundaries may preserve older layers even as new ones are added. Studying these layers helps geographers explain historical change, migration, conquest, and shifting economic priorities, all of which can be read from the built environment. Which scenario best illustrates sequent occupance?
12. A secondary source excerpt explains that low fertility affects age structure through cohort size: when smaller birth cohorts follow larger ones, the population's age distribution shifts upward over time, even if the total population does not immediately decline. Which statement best applies this cohort-based reasoning?
13. A secondary source compares policy goals by demographic context: countries in late stages of the demographic transition often face very low fertility and aging, while countries earlier in the transition may face rapid natural increase and pressure on schools, jobs, and infrastructure. Which pairing of demographic context and policy goal is most appropriate?
14. A secondary source excerpt explains that the same phenomenon can look different at different geographic scales. A national map shows a country's unemployment rate declining over five years, but a city-level study finds unemployment rising in several deindustrializing neighborhoods. Which statement best captures the scale effect?
15. A secondary-source article (about 100 words) on infrastructure deficits in rapidly growing cities describes a metropolitan region where the population has doubled in 15 years, but sewer connections expanded slowly. Many new informal settlements rely on pit latrines and drain wastewater into nearby streams. The article argues that the mismatch between growth and network expansion increases public health risks and constrains economic productivity. Which option best identifies the core infrastructure challenge described? A. The city's primary problem is overbuilding sewer capacity relative to demand. B. Rapid population growth has outpaced the extension of networked sanitation, creating service gaps. C. Sanitation outcomes depend only on household behavior, not on municipal infrastructure provision. D. Such sewer deficits are typical only in shrinking post-industrial cities with declining tax bases. E. The issue is purely a matter of choosing more advanced pipe materials, not expanding coverage.
16. A secondary-source excerpt notes that the ecological fallacy happens when people draw conclusions about individuals from aggregate statistics at a larger scale (like neighborhoods or counties). A health department reports that County X has a high diabetes rate and a journalist concludes, "Any resident of County X is likely diabetic." Which option identifies the error in reasoning?
17. A news outlet maps crime incidents using police reports and labels several neighborhoods as "high-crime." Community advocates argue the map is misleading because reporting rates differ by neighborhood and because the outlet used large ZIP code areas that mix very different blocks. Which critique best identifies a limitation or potential misuse of geographic data in this scenario?
18. Secondary-source excerpt (embedded): Regime types are not uniform. Two democracies may differ in the strength of courts, protections for minorities, or the fairness of elections; similarly, authoritarian regimes vary in how they use parties, militaries, or surveillance. Analysts therefore look for specific institutions and practices rather than assuming all states within a category behave the same way. Question: Which claim best demonstrates the analytical approach recommended in the excerpt?
19. Secondary-source excerpt (practice: irrigation): In a semi-arid river basin where farmers expanded canal irrigation for wheat and cotton, researchers observed rising groundwater tables and white crusts forming on poorly drained fields. They note that evapotranspiration can concentrate dissolved salts when drainage is limited, reducing crop productivity and sometimes prompting additional flushing that increases downstream salinity. The authors also caution that impacts vary with soil texture, canal lining, and whether irrigation is paired with effective drainage infrastructure. Which of the following best explains why the consequence described occurs?
20. A fitness app sells aggregated location traces showing popular running routes. A journalist demonstrates that, in low-population areas, "aggregated" heat maps can still reveal the routines of specific individuals who run at consistent times from the same home location. Which response best addresses privacy and ethical concerns with location data?

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