Cram for the Exam on C-SPAN!

Our friends at C-Span encourage your students to call-in to C-SPAN's "Cram for the Exam on C-SPAN" this Saturday! This program is to help students prepare for Monday's AP U.S. Government and Politics exam. Two AP U.S. Government teachers from Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Andrew Conneen and Dan Larsen, will go over vocabulary, give test taking pointers, and answer any of your students' last minute questions during the Washington Journal this Saturday, May 1 from 9-10am ET. The teachers will also discuss questions that have appeared on previous exams and explain what students could expect to see on the 2010 AP U.S. Government and Politics exam.

For an additional cram session, have your students take a look at C-SPAN's "Cram for the Exam on C-SPAN" 2009 program: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/205049

Your students can call-in to (202) 737-0001 ET/CT or (202) 737-0002 MT/PT, email to journal@c-span.org, or send questions via Twitter to @cspanwj during the one hour program. We hope that you and your students can join us for one last cram session before Monday's test!

FYI - You can now follow C-SPAN Classroom on Twitter for daily programming updates and C-SPAN Classroom related announcements: http://twitter.com/cspan_classroom

Mary T. McCullagh
Christopher Columbus High, Miami

Additional Supreme Court Cases

Korematsu v. U.S.

Buckley v. Valeo

Baker v. Carr

Key Concepts on Past APGov Exams

This link will take you to a list of 193 key concepts that were addressed in questions on the multiple choice sections of the 1994, 1999, 2002, and 2009 APGov exams.  Use this list to determine the most common topics addressed in the AP exam.

Thanks to Frank Franz of Madison HS (FCPS) for compiling this list.

New Deal Programs - from your peers!

An End to Filibusters?

Other Assorted AP Knowledge

AP Questions - Period 7

For a full-screen survey click here.

AP Questions - Period 5

Survey available here.

HoA - Bonus Army

Click this link to read an account of General Douglas MacArthur's removal of the "Bonus Army" from Washington, DC.

APGov Periods 5 & 7 - Homework

Week of April 19 - April 23
MONDAY: Complete reading Chapter 16
WEDNESDAY: Bring AP Review book to class on Friday, be prepared to share one challenging multiple choice question about either the Presidency, Congress, SCOTUS, or the Bureaucracy.
FRIDAY:

HoA: Causes of the Depression

NPR Story: Christian Legal Society v. Martinez

Great discussion today about this interesting case about the Christian Legal Society at UC Hastings.  Here's the story from yesterday's All Things Considered.

HoA - Homework

Week of April 19 - April 23
TUESDAY: Read and take notes on E.V. pp. 749-762
THURSDAY:

You should also be continuing to do necessary research for your internal assessment.

APGov - Period 3 - Homework

Week of April 19 - April 23
MONDAY: Janda pp. 526-532
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 532-537
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 537-546
THURSDAY:
FRIDAY: Ch. 15+16 take-home exam due at the beginning of class.

AP's Description of Free Response Tasks

Last year I posted these descriptions of the various free response tasks that appear on the AP Government exam.  With two weeks to go before the AP Exam, it's important that you know what these words mean to the AP.


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 characteristics presidents consider when making appointments.
Such a list, which could be bulleted or numbered, might include party, race, gender, etc.
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 reasons for the decline in voter turnout, they must do more than simply list facts—they must actually describe the reasons. Students may explain that the expansion of suffrage led to a decline in overall voter turnout because once voting was made available to more individuals, the overall percentage of those voting declined.
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.
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 or well-reasoned arguments.

AP Mock Exam Tomorrow

It's almost here!  If you plan on attending the AP mock exam make sure that you bring two #2 pencils and about 10 sheets of lined paper.  We should be out of the building before noon.

See you there!

HoA - Homework [UPDATED 4/16]

Week of April 12 - April 16
MONDAY: Read E.V. pp. 712-726
WEDNESDAY: Complete I.A. outline
FRIDAY: I.A. outline due today!!  Read and take notes on E.V. pp. 743-749

APGov Periods 5&7 - Homework

Week of April 12 - April 16
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 511-520 and complete SCOTUS case summary
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 520-537

HoA - Internal Assessment Info Sheet

A copy of the Internal Assessment information document that I distributed at the introduction of the assignment can be downloaded here.

APGov - 3rd Period Homework

Week of April 12 - April 16
MONDAY: Janda pp. 501-506
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 506-509, SCOTUS case summary due Thursday
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 511-516
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 516-520
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 520-526

APGov Reading Assignments - Period 3

Week of April 5th - April 9th
MONDAY: Janda pp. 470-472
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 473-480
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 480-490
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 490-495
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 495-501

APGov Reading Assignments - Periods 5 & 7

Week of April 5 - April 9
MONDAY: Janda pp. 470-480
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 480-495
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 495-508