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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.