AP Practice 2

AP Practice 2

A city can grow without expanding outward: when vacant lots or underused parcels appear inside an established urban area, infilling occurs as landowners build small, often multifamily housing units within existing city blocks. The geographic challenge is to connect that visible pattern to causes, consequences, and evidence across scales.

Task type: Stimulus-based free-response question

Treat this as an original, unofficial AP-style free-response exercise. Allow 25 minutes total, including up to 5 minutes for planning. Write organized prose rather than an outline: identify the geographic evidence, explain the relationship, and use a specific example when requested.

Stimulus: Two neighborhoods, one city

A city compares two neighborhoods between 2012 and 2024.

Measure	Neighborhood A: Inner-ring district	Neighborhood B: Outer fringe
Vacant parcels in 2012	42	18
Vacant parcels in 2024	9	21
Average distance to city center	$3$ km	$19$ km
New housing units, 2012–2024	$1{,}180$	$1{,}460$
Share of new units that are multifamily	$82%$	$24%
Average commute distance in 2024	$8$ km	$27$ km

A second map shows that Neighborhood A has frequent bus service, older water and sewer infrastructure, schools, and commercial streets. Neighborhood B has newer roads and utilities but fewer transit routes. A third image shows Neighborhood A changing from scattered vacant lots to continuous rows of small apartment buildings, while Neighborhood B changes from farmland to low-density detached housing.

Questions

(a) Describe the urban development pattern shown in Neighborhood A. [1 point]

(b) Explain one economic reason why infilling may occur in Neighborhood A. [1 point]

(c) Explain one way that population change can result from the interaction of mortality, fertility, and migration. [1 point]

(d) Explain how one environmental, economic, cultural, or political factor could influence migration into Neighborhood A. [1 point]

(e) Compare the population or land-use pattern in the two neighborhoods using evidence from the table or descriptions. [1 point]

(f) Explain how physical geography can influence agricultural practices, using PSO-5.A. [1 point]

(g) Explain one strength and one limitation of using a geographic model or theory to predict development in these neighborhoods, applying Suggested Skill 1.E: Explain the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of geographic models and theories in a specified context. [1 point]

Worked reasoning and scoring logic

(a) Full-credit reasoning: Neighborhood A demonstrates infilling, because previously open or vacant spaces within an existing city are being developed into housing. The evidence is the decline from $42$ vacant parcels to $9$ and the image showing apartment buildings occupying scattered internal spaces.

(b) Full-credit reasoning: Landowners may view vacant parcels near transit, schools, utilities, and commercial streets as profitable opportunities. Building multifamily housing there can use existing infrastructure and reach many renters or buyers without purchasing distant farmland.

(c) Full-credit reasoning: Population change equals the combined effect of deaths, births, and migration. For example, if fertility remains high and more working-age migrants enter Neighborhood A than residents leave, the neighborhood can grow even if mortality is also increasing among older residents.

(d) Full-credit reasoning: An economic factor could be access to employment. Frequent bus service and a shorter average commute may attract migrants seeking jobs while reducing transportation costs. A political factor could also matter: a housing policy that permits apartments or offers redevelopment incentives may increase the neighborhood’s ability to receive new residents.

(e) Full-credit reasoning: Neighborhood A is denser and more compact than Neighborhood B. A has $82%$ multifamily construction and an $8$ km average commute, whereas B has only $24%$ multifamily construction and a $27$ km commute. This comparison describes both a land-use difference and a likely spatial relationship between compact development and shorter travel distances.

(f) Full-credit reasoning: Physical geography helps shape agricultural practices because climate, soil, slope, and water availability affect what can be grown and how land is used. For instance, fertile, level land with reliable water can support intensive crop cultivation, while steep terrain may encourage terracing or grazing. The physical environment creates conditions and constraints, but it does not determine a single human response.

(g) Full-credit reasoning: A model such as the concentric zone model is useful because it offers a simplified expectation that older, denser development will occur near the city center and newer, lower-density development farther outward. Its limitation is that real cities do not grow in perfect rings: transit corridors, zoning, land prices, environmental hazards, historic districts, and political decisions can produce irregular patterns. A strong response applies the model to this city and then identifies where the evidence does or does not fit.

The reasoning move examiners reward

Do not merely state that one neighborhood is “more urban” or that migration “changes population.” Ask: How and why does the pattern emerge? Compare the two maps or landscapes, identify a measurable difference, and connect that difference to a process. The strongest causal chain is:

$$ \text{existing infrastructure and central location} \rightarrow \text{economic opportunity} \rightarrow \text{infilling} \rightarrow \text{higher density and shorter average travel} $$

A common misconception is that all urban growth is sprawl. Sprawl expands development outward into previously rural or undeveloped land; infilling reuses open space inside an already developed area. Another misconception is that physical geography dictates agricultural behavior. PSO-5.A requires a connection between physical conditions and practices, not environmental determinism.

Error-review routine

After finishing, label each response D for description, C for comparison, or E for explanation. Revise every answer marked only D by adding a cause, consequence, or process. Then check that every comparison names evidence from both neighborhoods and that every model response includes both a useful prediction and a context-specific limitation.